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Jul 23, 2006

Industry Report of the FMCG sector profiling P&G,UL,KMN,

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Financial Statement Analysis

In the healthy and growth inducing economic scenario of the 2000’s, P&G has seen double digit revenues growth to around $56b in 2005. Keeping its costs low has seen it achieve healthy profit margins of around 11% - 12%. Refer Table 1.

Table 1

Margins P&G

(in %) 2003 2004 2005

Gross Margin 49 51.2 51

Profit Margin 11.96 12.61 12.79

Financial Health: P&G is a stable company operating in a very mature and stable steady growth industry. It has an average Return on Assets of 12.5% and a high average Return on Equity of 43%. It turns its Inventory around 12 times a year, which is also an industry average .

One weak aspect of P&G is its relatively poor liquidity position. One reason is the high STD (short term debt). P&G, being a low risk firm is able to get STD at low interest rates and hence uses this instead of LTD. It generates huge positive free cash flows to ensure prompt payment of interest. I feel P&G prefers STD due to its speed and flexibility (no covenants).

Another reason for the low liquidity is its almost equal balance between its A/R and A/P. While a firm of its size should be able to work on its supplier’s capital, P&G surprisingly has not been able to that. Unilever has the highest A/P deferral period in the industry, thus leveraging its size to get a better bargain from the suppliers. P&G however, has an industry average A/P deferral period. The only reason I see P&G doing that it believes in treating suppliers better than its competitors by paying them on time as promised. This is part of P&G’s best practices philosophy and also of treating suppliers as partners. Therefore this weak position is not an indication of poor financial management, rather a reflection of good relations with suppliers.

P&G finds itself in a commoditized...