Spend enough time comparing operational and financial data and you are likely to notice a simple truth: companies that manage their working capital well steadily become more valuable. Consider, for example, what happened when Allianz Capital Partners, a private equity firm, acquired Schmalenbach-Lubeca, a German packaging company, in 2000. Allianz soon realised that its acquisition, accustomed as it was to easy loans from its erstwhile parent, was managing its working capital poorly. The new owners set to work, methodically tackling each component of working capital. A few years later, they were able to sell Schmalenbach-Lubeca at a premium, a substantial part of which could be traced to two simple changes – replacing loans from the parent company with bank debt, which necessitated a disciplined approach to repayment, and optimising the balance between payments and collections, which improved cash flows.
Around the time that Allianz was overhauling Schmalenbach-Lubeca, Robert Nardelli was getting to grips with Home Depot. The company had grown rapidly in the 1990s – over the decade, $100 turned into almost $4,000 – but in the new millennium, growth had fizzled. In desperation, Home Depot’s board had turned to Nardelli, a veteran of GE’s power systems business. On the working capital front, the situation he faced was grim. An example was the way suppliers were selling the same things at different prices to nine different divisions. As one director put it, “We ordered $40 billion worth of merchandise with a system consisting of paper and pencil.” Nardelli’s tenure ended abruptly, so it is difficult to assess the efficacy of his strategy, but it seems safe to say that procurement and, by extension, working capital, was better managed when he left Home Depot than when he arrived.
Home Depot is based in the US, but to see what good working capital management can achieve, we need travel no farther than China. When the Hong Kong-based Lenovo group acquired IBM’s personal computer division in 2005, it paid $1.2 billion. To make the acquisition succeed, Lenovo had to find savings swiftly. The board challenged senior vice president Qiao Song: could he save $150 million in direct spending by building a new procurement team? He would have 18 months to pull this off and, while he was at it, deliver savings of $300 million more in annualised running costs. How Qiao Song succeeded is a story in itself. For our purposes, one message stands out – working capital management (particularly procurement) was crucial to Lenovo’s achievement.
It should be obvious by now that there is more to working capital than what a routine appraisal of near-term liquidity is likely to reveal. The next time you’re studying a company, look closely at the components of working capital. Interview suppliers, if you can. Get a feel of the company’s procurement practices. If the company works through distributors, make inquiries among local representatives. As Lenovo’s Qiao Song told an interviewer recently, “Rapid increase in size meant we would need additional structure and more stringent processes in order to handle greater volumes.” Only with carefully designed practices, like strong working capital management, is the company – and your investment in it – likely to grow.
Shreedhar Kanetkar welcomes your comments. Write to [email protected]
Bernstein starts by strongly defending all those who crafted the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and modern portfolio theory (MPT), which have fetched several Nobel prizes for Markowitz, Scholes and others but which have been ridiculed by many successful practitioners as ivory tower finance. These theories were found to be too neat in the hurly-burly of the markets, based as they are on the assumption that all market players are rational and all prices incorporate all available information. Then came behavioural finance, pioneered by Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Richard Thaler and others, which underlined the crucial role of the individual investor’s psychology and the collective behaviour of the crowd which goes mad in bull markets, thereby significantly influencing investment outcome. This exposed the shortcomings of MPT, EMH and CAPM. They were branded as peddling ‘ivory tower finance’.
Since then, the two camps have been at loggerheads. Bernstein adds new light to the whole issue by narrating how the insights developed by the academics in the ‘ivory tower finance’ mould have been taken forward in the real world by Barclays Global Investors and Goldman Sachs Asset Management to develop winning strategies. This book is not as gripping as the earlier one. It is dry (the subject is) and the characters Bernstein describes are not colourful. But it is probably the only book so far which documents the recent history of applied financial innovation drawing from modern financial theory. It is a must for all serious students of finance, who must know that the whole topic is still evolving, as the title suggests. – D.B
1. Can a receipt for payment be dated 15 days after the date of payment with no payment details being mentioned on the receipt?
2. If the date of an ECS mandate is prior to the due date, such a mandate cannot be accepted, but if you pay before the due date by cheque, it is fine!
3. If you pay before 31st March but the debit in your account is in April, you can still claim tax benefit for such payment, even though the law requires you to make payment before 31st March. What happens if such a cheque bounces? You may still get credit in tax! Some people may be using this loophole deliberately.
4. State Bank of India says that signature verification can be done only by the branch manager. It says, even their existing customers must furnish a photocopy of their passbook for past one year while applying for a loan. When I pointed out that the branch is on core banking mode and they can see the whole account at their end, I was told this is the procedure and must be followed.
5. A private sector bank says that a company is not an entity in law! If you want a car loan on a company’s name, then the MD must be a co-borrower because that is the policy. Also, you must get your signature verification on four different forms; one form will not do because that is their procedure.
6. Salary accounts cannot be in joint names of husband and wife. Some
banks allow this and some don’t. So what is the real position? If you
want to protect the salary-earner, then the operating authority could be given
to the first-holder only. Why not have the account in joint names?
Anil Agashe, Pune by email
PRO-INVESTOR REFORMS NEEDED
The last
issue of MoneyLIFE was very good. The stocks selected for analysis are all
quality stocks. Nava Bharat is showing good strength. About Shree Cement, all
we can say is that in a bearish market, people forget values and in a bull
market they chase euphoria. Thanks for your piece on Genus with its unique
features. About the unusual re-listing price of KGN and Sylph Technologies, the
regulators stand exposed once again. Also, in Shyam Telecom and SVPCL,
investors will be the only losers. There is a lot of work to be done for our
market to be fair. Events like KGN, Sylph or English Indian Clays make a lot of
investors lose confidence in the market. They believe realty and gold are much
safer investments, even if they are more expensive. These incidents should be
seen as trust-breakers rather than just a single act of over-speculation. I
remember one incident of 1995-96. I bought shares of Gujarat Fun and Water Park
after reading an article in The Economic Times and looking at its financial
results. The stock was hitting upper circuits. Just a week after my buying,
trading stopped and remains so until today. I don’t know why. That was my
first step in the market. It was a lesson to study stocks, before purchasing
any. I also believe that, in general, all IPOs need to be regulated and IPOs
from government companies should be banned. People invested in these companies
and lost 40%-80% of their capital in just a few months. Even without the crude
oil price factor, how can a company valued at Rs5,000-Rs10,000 crore during its
IPO trade at just Rs2,000-Rs4,000 market-cap after few months?
Santosh Mhamunkar, by email
UNWANTED DEPOSITORS
Despite my submitting 15H (being a senior citizen and a high net worth customer
from the beginning of April 2007), this is the third year when TDS has been
deducted. This compels us to file the IT return just for the TDS refund;
otherwise it is not required as income is less than taxable limits. Of course,
getting IT refund is the other pain. Many customers have closed their Quantum
Flexi accounts. I had it taken up to the highest level but in vain. Even the
Income Tax department specifies one TDS exemption form for one financial year.
Other banks, like Axis Bank and HDFC Bank, ask for only one form. It is all due
to ICICI Bank’s scant regard for small customers. Also, despite
reminders, if one does not get the IT refund, then what is the recourse? Is
there a way one can approach CBDT or the IT Ombudsman? How effective is the IT
Ombudsman? I congratulate MoneyLIFE for taking up issues normally ignored by
other publications.
LOST MONEY IN FUNDSS
Our ranking of fund houses does not favour
those that make too many NFOs. (This is because NFOs are usually planned when
the market is bullish. As we have pointed out time and time again, what is a
good time for funds to raise money may not be the best time for investors to
subscribe.) However, this kind of ranking may not be correlated to short-term
fund performance. Unfortunately, we do not offer recommendations on individual
portfolios and that too of mutual funds. The problem with your approach of
investing in many diversified equity funds is that they have very similar
exposures and they fall and rise often at the same time. In short,
collectively, they don’t offer any diversification. --
Editor
FINE PROGRAMME
DUPED BY RELIGARE FRANCHISEE
Help Us to Help You
HOW TO REACH US
Please refer to Crosshairs under the heading “Not Wanted” (MoneyLIFE, 8th
May). It is true, that when organisations are small, they run after new
customers to prove their customer-friendliness. When they become bigger, they
have scant regard for the same customers on whose shoulders they rode. ICICI
Bank is no exception. They were keen to welcome people to open an account when
they came out with the new concept of ‘Quantum Flexi Account’. Many, like
me, opened such accounts. Things went very well for a few years. Now, they
indirectly dissuade customers from continuing their Quantum Flexi accounts. To
harass customers, they started deducting TDS on interest for every swipe from
FD - despite customers submitting their TDS exemption form (15G or 15H, as
applicable). Their contention is one must submit the TDS exemption form for
every withdrawal where tax becomes applicable on the interest. They
categorically confirmed that we need to submit 12 forms for each month!
Bipin I Shah, 403, Dimple Heights, Asha Nagar, Thakur
Complex, Kandivali (East), Mumbai
I am enclosing the list of mutual funds in
which I have invested as an SIP (systematic investment plan) or a one-time
investment. In your recent analysis of fund houses (cover story, MoneyLIFE,
22 May 2008), I did not find any of my mutual funds among the top five. I am
worried that I may not have picked the right fund houses and the right schemes.
Also, in the past year, I have lost money in whichever fund I invested in as
SIP. Although I am in no hurry to withdraw my money and am a long-term
investor, please advise me on what I should do?
Commander Samir Gupta, by email
We thank MoneyLIFE for the music
concert of Begum Afroz Bano on 1 June 2008. The music was just great and
nostalgic, taking us back to the great musical times of yesteryears. Your
magazine has done a great service not only to the senior music stalwart but
also to listeners and lovers of such music which is hardly heard these days. Pt
Birju Maharaj commented very rightly that if the corporate world spent even
one-tenth of the amount they spend for cricket, to promote a few cultural
activities of our country, they would do a good service to our rich heritage.
We hope you continue in this direction to serve the society and provide an
inspiration to other corporates. After all, performing arts need patronage to
thrive and will not then die, as we all fear.
Drs Rodhan and Rekha Shroff, by
email
I have worked for ONGC for 31 years and
resigned at the level of executive director, corporate planning. I have joined
Reliance Industries in their petroleum division as senior vice president,
geosciences. I am an account-holder with Axis Bank and I also hold a joint
account with my wife Dr Anjana Sen in the same bank for portfolio management.
Sandeep Roy Choudhury is our wealth manager. My wife and I opened a pair of
trading accounts with Religare, recommended to me by an old colleague in
Nov/Dec 2007 for Rs five lakh each. I am regretting the decision. Supradip
Ghosh, who has a franchise with Religare, made great promises. Even as late as
April 2008, he stated that all my capital investment would be returned to me by
June 2008 with profits. He kept me in the dark about my investment and went
about trading recklessly. I was able to get the Excel sheets showing statements
of transactions only at the intervention of their corporate office. These
clearly indicate how recklessly the investments have been made. Mr Ghosh now
callously states that ‘everybody else has suffered like that’ and has no
plans to redeem such losses. This is in total contrast to what he had promised
when he came for the sales talk.
I am a service-class person and all this money is tax paid. My wife has booked
a flat in Faridabad and this money would have come in handy for paying my loan
instalments. I had sent mails to Religare but other than their usual form
letter and the account statement, they have nothing else to say. I had a
discussion with Sandeep (Axis Bank) who suggested that I seek your help. I
would like to discuss the matter with a senior person in Religare who could
take up the issue seriously, own the responsibility for such erosion of capital
and suggest means to redeem the loss. The account needs to be shifted from an
incompetent franchisee like Supradip Ghosh to a more conscientious wealth
manager. A plan of action to redeem this loss needs to be worked out. I need
your personal intervention to take up the matter at the highest level with
Religare. Small investors like me need protection and should be made aware of
the risks involved before tall claims are made by Religare or their
representatives. Kindly also advise if this matter should be brought to the
notice of SEBI, unless it is resolved.
Gautam Sen, by email
MoneyLIFE offers its readers a unique
service -- of helping redress individual grievances on a best-effort basis.
However, we have limited resources to devote to this effort and can only pursue
complaints that come to us by email. We request readers to please send us crisp
complaints with all the facts on email (not as an attachment) and send us the
supporting documents only if we ask for them. We cannot handle physical
letters. -- Editor
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