There is no one single silver bullet answer. The best way to find out is to compare it against peers and check for oneself as to how reasonable the numbers are.
I am attaching a link to glaucus which has a short thesis on rolta
https://glaucusresearch.com/
Some of the most common sensical things that one looks for are
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materially large items in BS or PL that make a big impact. For eg., say cash in satyam’s case that was a big chunk of the overall BS or huge capital expenditure. triangulate this with things like “other income” or ‘cash flows from operations”.
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in case of over invoicing, check the receivables as a % of revenues and see if they are increasing or decreasing and their impact on cash flow from operations.
- check RM/labour cost as a % of sales for the company and other competitors in the industry. if significantly different, it’s something to dig into.
The most important thing is to induct – keep progressing from one point to another using common sense and inference. For eg., disproportionately high receivables – >lower operating cash flows – > higher WC – >check impact on actual cash taxes paid – > if low, investigate further and clarify.
others can add in as we go along.
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