Читать книгу Corporate Finance For Dummies - Michael Taillard - Страница 110

The information included in the balance sheet allows you to determine the very value of a company, as well as to whom that value is allocated as the company either thrives or fails in its pursuits. Everything that contributes to the value of a single corporation is either provided by the owners (the shareholders) or the lenders (who the corporation is obligated to repay). It is for this reason that those in corporate finance must work hard to find the appropriate balance between the two (discussed in more detail in Chapter 17).

By applying this information, you can determine a company’s ability to pay back loans, the value of the company’s stock, and the expected return for investors. Plus, you can use the values you get from these metrics to evaluate whether the company is worth any loans issued, how efficiently management is allocating resources, how efficient the company’s production is working, how effective a company is at managing inventory, how efficiently it sells its products, how effective it is at collecting debt, and so much more.

By itself, the balance sheet shows only metrics related to value. But when you use it with information from the income statement and the statement of cash flows, you can determine how effectively a company is using its assets to generate income, as well as how well a company may use income to pay its debts.