For years, GAAP earnings per share was the financial metric of choice for virtually all professional equity investors. However, increasing problems with this approach, combined with a growing appreciation of investment economics, have caused many investors to turn to Free Cash Flow as their primary financial metric. Even with the growing popularity of Free Cash Flow, the lack of detailed information in this field has made it difficult for many investors to integrate Free Cash Flow into their daily investment discipline. That's why George Christy--a financial executive and corporate banker with over thirty years of experience--has created Free Cash Flow: Seeing Through the Accounting Fog Machine to Find Great Stocks. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, this reliable resource shows you how analyzing a company's financial performance can put you in a better position to pick winning stocks and improve the overall returns of your portfolio. Throughout the book, Christy explains the differences between Free Cash Flow and GAAP earnings, and describes the advantages of Free Cash Flow. He also takes you step by step through the Free Cash Flow Statement(R)--which focuses on the primary drivers of investor return: revenues, cash operating margin, and use of capital--and illustrates how each of the four deployments of Free Cash Flow can enhance or diminish shareholder return. In order to put the ideas outlined in perspective, Christy applies the conceptual building blocks of Free Cash Flow and investor return to an actual company--McDonald's--and goes line by line through the downloadable Free Cash Flow Worksheet(R) that integrates the primary components of share value into an investor return model. Five other restaurant companies are compared to McDonald's, and each other, using both Free Cash Flow and GAAP metrics. Rounding out this detailed discussion of Free Cash Flow, Christy shows you how to assess a CEO's commitment to investor return by analyzing three key sources, and explains how to use the Free Cash Flow Worksheet in your stock search, from finding candidates with screeners to making buy, hold, or sell decisions. Cash is the essence of shareholder value, and with Free Cash Flow as your guide, you'll quickly learn how to use this important metric to find, and profit from, great stocks. The Free Cash Flow Statement(R) and the Free Cash Flow Worksheet(R) used in this book and found on its companion Web site (www.wiley.com/go/christy) were specifically developed by the author for this book. Be sure to see the detailed Table of Contents on page IX. Free Cash Flow goes where no other investment book has gone before.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Foreword xv
Preface xix
CHAPTER 1 Investing 101 1
Price 1
Free Cash Flow 2
Risk and Return 3
The Return Multiple 4
Return and Price 4
Debt 6
Equity 9
Debt versus Equity 11
Private Company versus Public Company 12
CHAPTER 2 The Accounting Fog Machine 15
GAAP: Competing Theories, Matters of Opinion, Political Compromises 16
GAAP: Accrual Abuse 17
GAAP: Errors Bred by Complexity 17
GAAP'S Gap 18
GAAP EPS: An Incomplete Definition of Financial Performance 18
GAAP EPS: Investing in an Economic Vacuum 18
EBITDA is Not a Cash Flow Metric 19
The GAAP Cash Flow Statement 19
Beware the Balance Sheet 20
Liquidity 21
Fixed Assets and Depreciation 21
Leverage and Debt Service 22
Whose Return on Equity? 22
The Notes 23
When Do Accruals Meet Cash Flows? 23
What is to be Done? 24
CHAPTER 3 Free Cash Flow 25
Reconciliation of Net Income and Free Cash Flow 25
Free Cash Flow versus Net Income 27
A Universal Definition? 28
Academic Research and the Discounted Cash Flow Model 29
Barron's Rankings 30
Buy-Side Users 31
Private Equity Firms 31
Warren Who? 31
A Vast Media Conspiracy? 32
FASB Staff Findings 32
FAS 95: A Cruel Rule 33
EPS Misses: The Real Deal 33
An Alternative to the Government Number 34
CHAPTER 4 The Free Cash Flow Statement 35
Building the Free Cash Flow Statement 35
Four Key Questions 40
Revenues 41
Operating Cash Flow 43
Working Capital 44
Capex 45
Capex: Magnitude and Risk 46
Capex and Capital 47
Capex Transfer 48
Capex Visibility 48
Capex and Investor Return 49
Free Cash Flow 49
Free Cash Flow Yield 50
CHAPTER 5 Free Cash Flow Deployment 53
Acquisitions 54
Buybacks 56
Dividends 59
Debt 60
Projecting Investor Return 61
CHAPTER 6 The Free Cash Flow Worksheet 65
Worksheet Features 66
Entering Historical Data 68
Adjustments to GAAP Cash Flow 68
Operating Cash Flow 71
Capex 71
From the Balance Sheet 72
The Free Cash Flow Statement 73
GAAP Data 74
Percentages 75
Per Share Data 76
Incremental Data and Company's Reinvestment Return 77
Cash Sources and Deployments 78
Acquisitions 80
Buybacks 80
Dividends 81
Debt 82
Operations 82
Projecting Free Cash Flow 83
Projecting Cash Sources 86
Projecting Acquisitions 87
Projecting in Share Value Due to in the Number of Shares 88
Projecting Investor Return from Dividends 90
Projecting in Share Value Due To in Debt 91
Projecting in Share Value from Operations 94
GAAP Data, Percentages, and Per Share Data 94
Incremental Data and Company's Reinvestment Return 95
Investor Return Projection 96
Return Multiple 98
Adding Periods to the Worksheet 100
Using the Worksheet 100
CHAPTER 7 Six Companies 101
Revenues 102
Percentage Change in Revenues 102
Operating Cash Flow Margin 103
Capex as a Percentage of Revenues 105
Free Cash Flow Margin 106
Free Cash Flow Per Share 107
The Government Number 109
Net Nonworking Capital Items 109
McDonald's 111
Panera Bread 113
Applebee's 114
P. F. Chang's Bistro 115
Cheesecake Factory 116
IHOP 118
Three Musketeers without New Unit Capex 121
Whose Return on Equity? 121
Sell-Side Analysts 124
Total Returns 125
Take Your Pick 125
CHAPTER 8 The CEO and Investor Return 129
The CEO's Letter to Shareholders 129
The Quarterly Earnings Conference Call 135
The CEO's Incentive Compensation 137
CHAPTER 9 Finding Great Stocks 145
The Nine Steps 145
Diversification for Individual Investors 150
Equity Mutual Funds 151
Free Cash Flow and Bonds 152
Free Cash Flow and the Financial Crisis of 2008 152
APPENDIX A Equations 153
APPENDIX B McDonald's Income Statement 159
APPENDIX C McDonald's Balance Sheet 162
APPENDIX D McDonald's ROIIC and Weighting 164
APPENDIX E McDonald's ROIIC Calculations 165
APPENDIX F Recommended Reading 168
Notes 171
Acknowledgments 174
About the Author 175
About the Website 176
Index 177
