Counterpoint Global Insights Categorizing for Clarity Cash Flow Statement Adjustments to Improve Insight Investing CONSILIENT OBSERVER | October 6, 2021 Introduction You can think about a business using some simple ideas. A company spends money on investments that are expected to generate good returns relative to the capital’s opportunity cost. It then sells a good or service to customers that generates revenues and incurs expenses. The difference between revenues and costs is operating income, and after financing costs and taxes a company is left with net income. When income exceeds investments, the company generates cash that it can return to the capital providers. When investments exceed income, the company has to raise capital, usually by issuing debt or equity. The objective of financial statements is to help investors, creditors, and other interested parties understand the business. Financial statements are intended to be relevant and to have predictive value. 1 In standard finance, discounted cash flow (DCF) models are based on free cash flow, the difference between net operating profit after taxes (NOPAT) and investment in future growth. The analyst projects cash flows and then discounts them to estimate today’s value. Public companies are required to disclose an income statement, a balance sheet, and a statement of cash flows. The income statement starts with revenue and shows the costs and expenses that lead to net income for a given period. The balance sheet provides a snapshot of a company’s assets as well as the liabilities and equity used to finance them. The statement of cash flows classifies cash inflows and cash outflows into three categories: cash flow from operating activities, cash flow from investing activities, and cash flow from financing activities. The sum of the three categories reconciles a company’s cash and cash equivalents from one period to the next. The statement of cash flows is a relatively recent accounting statement, having been required in its current form only since 1988. 2 AUTHORS Michael J. Mauboussin [email protected]Dan Callahan, CFA [email protected]
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Counterpoint Global Insights Categorizing for Clarity
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Counterpoint Global Insights
Categorizing for Clarity Cash Flow Statement Adjustments to Improve Insight Investing
CONSILIENT OBSERVER | October 6, 2021
Introduction
You can think about a business using some simple ideas. A
company spends money on investments that are expected to
generate good returns relative to the capital’s opportunity cost. It
then sells a good or service to customers that generates revenues
and incurs expenses. The difference between revenues and costs
is operating income, and after financing costs and taxes a company
is left with net income. When income exceeds investments, the
company generates cash that it can return to the capital providers.
When investments exceed income, the company has to raise
capital, usually by issuing debt or equity.
The objective of financial statements is to help investors, creditors,
and other interested parties understand the business. Financial
statements are intended to be relevant and to have predictive
value.1 In standard finance, discounted cash flow (DCF) models
are based on free cash flow, the difference between net operating
profit after taxes (NOPAT) and investment in future growth. The
analyst projects cash flows and then discounts them to estimate
today’s value.
Public companies are required to disclose an income statement, a
balance sheet, and a statement of cash flows. The income
statement starts with revenue and shows the costs and expenses
that lead to net income for a given period. The balance sheet
provides a snapshot of a company’s assets as well as the liabilities
and equity used to finance them.
The statement of cash flows classifies cash inflows and cash
outflows into three categories: cash flow from operating activities,
cash flow from investing activities, and cash flow from financing
activities. The sum of the three categories reconciles a company’s
cash and cash equivalents from one period to the next. The
statement of cash flows is a relatively recent accounting statement,
having been required in its current form only since 1988.2
1 “Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 8: Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting,” Financial
Accounting Standards Board, September 2010. 2 Income statements and balance sheets have been around for a long time (double-entry bookkeeping, a
powerful innovation, goes back to the 13th century). In 1863, Northern Central Railroad summarized its cash
transactions in an early version of a cash flow statement. In 1902, U.S. Steel provided a reconciliation of its
current assets minus accounts payable, a rough proxy for working capital. (See
https://digital.case.edu/islandora/object/ksl%3Auniann00.) In 1971, the Accounting Principles Board (APB)
issued Opinion 19, which required a funds statement. In 1987, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
released Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 95 to supersede Opinion 19. It specified a cash flow
statement be included in financial reports. There are two noteworthy points about FAS No. 95. First, it
encouraged companies to use the “direct method,” which starts the section on cash flows from operations with
receivables from customers, relative to the “indirect method,” which starts the section with net income. Nearly
all companies use the indirect method today. Second, there was substantial dissension on the FASB board,
which is noted in the release. For a more complete discussion see, Geoffrey Poitras, “History of the Cash Flow
Statement” at www.sfu.ca/~poitras/cash-flow-stmt-history.pdf. For a broader discussion of the history of
accounting, see Gary John Previts and Barbara Dubis Merino, A History of Accountancy in the United States:
The Cultural Significance of Accounting (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Pres, 1998). 3 Allen G. Arnold, R. Barry Ellis, V. Sivarama Krishnan, “Toward Effective Use of the Statement of Cash Flows,”
Journal of Business and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 30, No. 2, Fall 2018, 46-62. 4 As we have discussed before, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. had negative free cash flow each year from 1972-1986.
Its annual total shareholder return was 18 percentage points higher than that of the S&P 500 during that period. 5 For example, see the corporate performance statement in Alfred Rappaport, “The Economics of Short-Term
Performance Obsession,” Financial Analysts Journal, Vol. 61, No. 3, May/June 2005, 65-79. 6 Katharine Adame, Jennifer Koski, Katie Lem, and Sarah McVay, “Free Cash Flow Disclosure in Earnings
Announcements,” Working Paper, June 3, 2020. For example, see Paul Roche and Sid Tandon, “SaaS and the
Rule of 40: Keys to the Critical Value Creation Metric,” McKinsey & Company, August 3, 2021. 7 The standard definition of free cash flow in finance is net operating profit after taxes (NOPAT) minus investment
in future growth. NOPAT equals earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) plus amortization of acquired
intangibles assets minus cash taxes. Cash taxes reflect the tax provision, deferred taxes, and the tax shield. As
such, NOPAT is the unlevered cash earnings of a company. Investment in future growth includes changes in
working capital, capital expenditures net of depreciation, and acquisitions net of divestitures. Two components
of investment are reflected in cash flow from operating activities: depreciation and amortization and changes in
working capital. In Amazon’s case, changes in working capital have historically been a source of cash because
the company receives cash from its customers sooner than it pays its suppliers. (To be more formal, the company
has a negative cash conversion cycle.) In effect, working capital has been a source of financing for the company.
This is not unique to Amazon but is an important consideration in assessing investment, profit, and financing. 8 Brian J. Hall, “Six Challenges in Designing Equity-Based Pay,” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Vol. 15,
No. 3, Spring 2003, 21-33. 9 Michael C. Jensen and Kevin J. Murphy, “CEO Incentives: It's Not How Much You Pay, But How,” Harvard
Business Review, Vol. 68, No. 3, May-June 1990, 138-153. 10 Alfred Rappaport, “New Thinking on How to Link Executive Pay with Performance,” Harvard Business Review,
Vol. 77, No. 2, March-April 1999, 91-101. 11 “Stock Options are Not a Free Lunch,” Forbes, May 18, 1998. 12 Judy A. Laux and Abdou N’Dir, “Employee Stock Options and Market Efficiency,” Journal of Applied Business
Research, Vol. 23, No. 2, Second Quarter 2007. 13 Partha Mohanram, Brian White, and Wuyang Zhao, “Stock-Based Compensation, Financial Analysts, and
Equity Overvaluation,” Review of Accounting Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3, September 2020, 1040-1077. 14 Qi Sun and Mindy Z. Xiaolan, “Financing Intangible Capital,” Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 133, No. 3,
15 Sanjeev Bhojraj, “Stock Compensation Expense, Cash Flows, and Inflated Valuations,” Review of Accounting
Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3, September 2020, 1078-1097. 16 Amazon.com, Form 8-K, February 2, 2021. 17 Building an unlevered DCF model requires an adjustment for operating lease expense. After the FASB
updated its standards for Lease (Topic 842) accounting, which most companies had to implement by early 2019,
companies capitalize operating leases but still expense lease costs. The result is a mismatch that needs to be
corrected.
Consistent with the discussion in the body, think of an airline buying a plane and financing it with debt. The
company records the plane as an asset and the debt as a liability. It would then subtract interest expense, a
financing cost, from operating income. Now consider a lease of the plane. Per the updated standard, the plane
would show up on the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet. But the airline records the lease cost as an
operating, rather than a financing, expense. This means that to calculate net operating profit after taxes (NOPAT)
correctly, you need to reclassify the embedded interest portion of the lease cost from the operating section of
the income statement to the financing section. This is only for U.S. GAAP, as the International Accounting
Standards Board (IASB) properly treats the depreciation and interest expense components of operating lease
payments. See Matthew A. Stallings, “The Potential Impact of Lease Accounting on Equity Valuation:
Implications of Cost of Capital and Free Cash Flow Estimates,” CPA Journal, Vol. 87, No. 11, November 2017,
52-56. 18 Baruch Lev and Feng Gu, The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers (Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2016). For the case against capitalizing intangible investments, see Stephen Penman,
Accounting for Value (New York: Columbia Business School Publishing, 2011). Penman writes,
“This view [that accounting is remiss if it does not get the balance sheet right] is shared by those who maintain
that accounting fails by not putting intangible assets on the balance sheet. They ask: How can accountants leave
important assets off the balance sheet, assets such as a firm’s ‘knowledge capital,’ its ‘human capital,’ the
organizational capital’ in its customer and supply-chain relationships, and its R&D assets? Why in the
‘information age’ do we still have a balance sheet more suited for the ‘industrial age’ when value came primarily
from tangible assets rather than intangible assets? Let’s get value back on the balance sheet!
This is an alluring proposal. The fundamentalist, of course, shudders. He or she see the term ‘intangible asset,’
as an excuse for speculation, for putting water on the balance sheet. . . . Anyone drilled in the methods of
accounting for value sees the fallacy in the notion that the balance sheet is remiss if it does not indicate asset
values; there is also an income statement and accounting for value employs both the income statement and the
balance sheet. If value is missing from book value, it can be plugged with earnings from the income statement.”
(179-180). 19 For example, see Carol A. Corrado, Charles Hulten, and Daniel Sichel, “Measuring Capital and Technology:
An Expanded Framework,” in Carol A. Corrado, John Haltiwanger, and Daniel Sichel, eds. Measuring Capital in
the New Economy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Carol A. Corrado, Charles Hulten, and Daniel
Sichel, “Intangible Capital and U.S. Economic Growth,” Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 55, No. 3, September
2009, 661-685; and Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible
Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017). 20 Michael J. Mauboussin and Dan Callahan, “Market-Expected Return on Investment: Bridging Accounting and
Valuation,” Consilient Observer: Counterpoint Global Insights, April 14, 2021. 21 Aneel Iqbal, Shivaram Rajgopal, Anup Srivastava, and Rong Zhao, “Value of Internally Generated Intangible
Capital,” Working Paper, September 2021 and Luminita Enache and Anup Srivastava, “Should Intangible
Investments Be Reported Separately or Commingled with Operating Expenses? New Evidence,” Management
Science, Vol. 64, No. 7, July 2018, 3446-3468. 22 “Financial Accounting Standards No. 95: Statement of Cash Flows,” November 1987, item 17.
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