Introduction
Amazon Company is one of the leading online retail companies in the world. Amazon has proven to be the leading online platform where customers can be able to purchase products at a very fair price. Among the products available include; electronics, kitchenware, clothing and motor vehicles. Amazon started as a humble beginning in 1994 with Jeff Bezos as the CEO. It provided a platform where various independent individuals can list their products and sell them at a discounted price (Greenspan, 2017).
Amazon is aimed at increasing its revenues and market share as a long-term measure and also making sure the shareholders are paid dividends. Amazon also focuses on maintaining competitive cost price of the profit margins and also the dividends paid to the shareholders. This research paper will aim in analyzing Amazon financial statements, discuss its decision making based on its financial, and draw the conclusion about the company’s potential to continue as a going concern and maintain its market position.
Pro Forma financial statements
The two statements under the Pro Forma statements are the balance sheet and the income statement. For Amazon, Income statement and Balance sheet were generated using the percentage of Sales criteria. It was assumed that; the total dividends was 60% of the total income, sales grew proportionally with the account payables, that there was a 10% increase in the cost of goods sold (COGS) and sales and that Amazon is fully operational and that there is a proportional growth to all of its assets. It is estimated that the company’s revenue will increase $121 and $131 billion for the years 2016 and 2017 respectively. The source of financing for the two financial years are common stock and long-term debt which both share the equal percentage of 50%.
Financial statement analysis
The company’s financial statements and analysis for the year ending 31st December 2015 are somehow satisfactory. The current ratio of 1.076 of Amazon implies that the company is able to take off its current liabilities because it poses reasonable current assets. Amazon slightly underperformed due to the industry average of 1.26. In addition, the quick ratio of 0.77 implies a negative inference to the company, because it has to counter the short-term financial obligations by using the liquid assets. The industry average is 0.82, which the company has failed to beat.
Based on the Return on Equity (ROE) and Return On Assets (ROA), the company’s profits are much better. ROE and ROA recorded a 0.96 and 4.95 respectively which means that the growth of the shareholders increased by a double digit. Moreover, Amazon assets increased value by 49.4% as one dollar worth of assets generated 0.494 cents.
During the analysis of the company’s asset management, it is discovered that the methods used were relatively efficient. The industry average benchmark for inventory turnover is 25.22. Amazon recorded an inventory turnover of 17.78 during the ending of the financial year 31st December 2015. The low inventory turnover implies that Amazon has a moderately high turnover. One of the benefits of the low Inventory turnover is being the chance of possible gain in sales in the coming future. Amazon had a total turnover ratio of 1.73 compared to the industry’s average of 1.12. The positive turn over implies that the company is at its best in asset management. Amazon recorded Price Per Index (PPI) ratio of about 7.56. This means that every investor needed to pay a total of 7.56% per share to every amount that the company earned. Overall, the company slightly underperformed. It recorded a 23.64 overall performance compared to the overall industry performance of 28.78.
Cash Flows
Cash flows are essential in financial statement analysis because it holds key accounting information such as cash receipts, expenditure among others. Since the year 2012, the company’s cash flows have increased significantly and in the year 2015, Amazon increases the cash flows by $6842 million. The total net operating income is largely influenced by the company’s net income. Investment activities have continuously shown negative cash expenditures for Amazon as they continue to expand and grow the company. In 2014 the net cash flow for investment activities showed an outflow of $5065 million and outflow has increased in 2015 to $6450 million and $9876 million in 2016. According to Amazon’s 2016 annual report, investing activities varies according to the resolution made to buy or lease property and equipment. “Cash outflows from financing activities result from principal repayments on obligations related to capital leases and finance leases and repayments of long-term debt and other” (Amazon Annual Report, 2016).
Decision making
As mentioned earlier, Amazon is among the most successful e-commerce company in the world. The company has been able to outshine its competitors for example e-Bay. Jeff Bezos, the chief CEO, explain how it was easy to achieve this and one of the things he did was being able to be good in decision making. According to the letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos insists that not all decisions made have a priority. Some decisions are less prioritized than others. Decision making highly depends on the company’s balance sheet, income statement and the cash flows. The finance manager at Amazon Inc. needs to make three types of financial decisions. These are investment decisions, financing decisions and dividend decisions (Parmentier, & Cuypers, 2015).
- Investment decisions– In this, the total number of the assets possessed by the firm, and the business risk seen by the investors. This is the best decision that Amazon should put into consideration. All costs are in limited quantity; therefore the good utilization of these will result in wealth maximization. Investment can be categorized into two major broad groups namely; long-term investment decisions and short-term investment decisions.
- Financing decisions– once Amazon has committed to new investment, the finance manager need to wisely choose on how to fund the projects. The optimum capital structure will be determined by how the manager chooses the source of the funds. The most vital thing here indecision is the fraction of the sources in the capital mix of the firm. The profitability of Amazon can be achieved by ensuring that the Debt-Equity ratio is fixed. The finance manager needs to find a pivot point the various sources of funds so that the overall profits for the company improve.
- Dividends decision– dividend distribution to the investors is also a major financial decision for Amazon. A number of decisions have to be made for example whether all the profits need to be distributed to the investors, retain them or split the profits and distribute partially to the investors. Increase in dividend allocation will result in the increase of the market price for shares and therefore maximize the wealth of the shareholders or the investors (Samonas, 2015). Amazon needs to keep in mind for dividend stability, bonus shares, and cash dividend.
Conclusion
Amazon Company has cover milestones to be where it is now. It is evident that the company growth is not going to diminish soon and it will continue to provide e-commerce services to its customers. Making the appropriate decisions, Amazon will continue to be a giant online business company in the world.
References
Amazon.com Annual Report 2016(Rep.). (n.d.). from http://phx.corporate- ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-reportsannual
Greenspan, R. (2017). Amazon. com Inc. Five Forces Analysis & Recommendations
Parmenter, G., & Cuypers, B. (2015). Business valuation: Using financial analysis to measure a company’s value. Cambridge, UK: Intersentia.
Samonas, M. (2015). Financial forecasting, analysis, and modeling: A framework for long-term forecasting.
