Companies are ingenious inventions. From humble, functional roots, the company has grown to be one of the most successful legal creations ever, responsible for untold global economic growth and development. The ability to adopt a legal personality distinct from its owners, and later, the concept of limited liability, made companies a lean, legal structure that has been tailor-made to suit the needs of private capital. With the ability to sell equity and attract outside investment more easily, companies gave entrepreneurs the potential to raise serious amounts of capital.
For would-be investors, companies have presented the ideal basis for investing capital. The corporate structure made it possible for investors to take security for their investments, in the form of a proportion of ownership. Ever since, this has helped attract private capital for all manner of projects, from starting new businesses through to investing in world-changing products and innovations.
While the structure is extremely effective on a practical basis for those looking to invest, there are no guarantees that the company you are investing in will work out, particularly when you are investing in younger or smaller companies without a history of robust returns. Limited liability is essential for encouraging a certain degree of necessary risk in business, but this comes at the expense of your capital when investments don’t work out so well.
The answer lies in the analysis of company financials. The bottom line for most companies in determining their value has to be a combination of their financial data and the future outlook for their business and its possible growth. But in order to make assessments about a company’s value, it is essential that you first understand how its value depends on the fundamental financial information it publishes each year.
How Share Price Is Affected By Company Fundamentals
Shares are essentially units of ownership. They entitle the owner to a unitary vote, proportionate to the holding, in company affairs. At the highest level, companies work like a representative democracy, with shareholders the electorate. There may be 3 shareholders, or there may be 300,000 shareholders – the numbers are irrelevant to the way companies are controlled and the way they make crucial strategic decisions. When you take on a share, you are also investing in a share of the profits to come from the company, declared as a dividend.
Many investors buy shares for speculative purposes, on the assumption that the market for them will rise over time. Some do so for the purposes of extracting dividends, and others look to balance and maximize the revenues from both. Depending on your main focus, the analysis of company fundamentals, and in particular its financial statements, will allow you to identify whether it is a sound investment.
The share price should encapsulate the total value of the business, divided into individual units. In normal circumstances, a healthy company would show a share price that was proportionately equivalent to the value of all of its assets (see the balance sheet), plus a premium reflective of its prospects for the future, building in the potential for future price growth and dividends. If the share price falls below the value of a company’s assets, it is de facto undervalued. If it inflates to a point where investors are no longer comfortable buying, the scales will recalibrate and force the price back to a more normal level.
How To Analyze Company Accounts
The value of a company is therefore directly linked to its financial performance. For investors, this means it is crucial to analyze company accounts before coming to invest. Otherwise, it would be impossible to gauge whether you are investing in an effective company or a dud. You don’t strictly need formal accountancy training to analyze companies in this way, although it can be useful if you want to gain better insights into how they work. BBA training can be extremely helpful.
Analyzing company accounts requires at least a working familiarity with accounting, and the methodology for preparing these financial statements. Most companies are required by law to submit financial data as a matter of public record. This is designed to ensure that investors, whoever they may be, however distant from the company, can learn everything they need to know to make an investment. These tend to be published annually, so investors can run a side-by-side comparison of performance over the last few years. Furthermore, it is even possible to compare different companies in much the same way, using the standardized accounting data they publish each year.
There are too many important figures in a company’s accounts to list. In fact, every item in both the balance sheet and profit and loss account paints a picture of how the company is being run. From its total assets, including reserves, through to individual items of expenditure, the accounts of a company give you an in-depth insight into its health and well-being, prior to your investment. This is essential for ensuring that any money you do invest is in safe hands, and stands a realistic prospect of increasing in value over the duration of your ownership. Companies that are built on shaky foundations are unlikely to prove an effective investment, and the accounts are the best basis on which to make this assessment.
Investing in companies can be a financially rewarding option. Many investors choose to do so as an alternative to more stagnant investments – their reward is the ability to seriously grow their capital through solid investment decisions. Better accounting skills will stand you in good stead for assessing the value of companies prior to your investment. The more intimately you understand the fundamentals of financial analysis, the more realistic it will be for your investments to show a profit.
Whether you choose to train in accountancy through formal channels, or you simply brush up on the basics of how accounts are prepared, studying these factors can make you a much more effective investor.