Why Do Managers Voluntarily Issue Cash Flow Forecasts?

We study a relatively recent change in voluntary disclosure practices by management, namely, the issuance of cash flow forecasts. We predict and find that management issues cash flow forecasts to signal good news in cash flow, to meet investor demand for cash flow information, and to precommit to a certain composition of earnings in terms of cash flow versus accruals, thus reducing the degree of freedom in earnings management. Our results also suggest that management discloses good news in cash flow to mitigate the negative impact of bad news in earnings, to lend credibility to good news in earnings, and to signal economic viability when the firm is young. Our finding that management cash flow forecasts primarily convey good news is in contrast to the generally negative nature of management earnings guidance and suggests that different incentives drive firms' disclosure of different financial information.     

Analyzing the Analysts: Career Concerns and Biased Earnings Forecasts

We examine security analysts' career concerns by relating their earnings forecasts to job separations. Relatively accurate forecasters are more likely to experience favorable career outcomes like moving up to a high-status brokerage house. Controlling for accuracy, analysts who are optimistic relative to the consensus are more likely to experience favorable job separations. For analysts who cover stocks underwritten by their houses, job separations depend less on accuracy and more on optimism. Job separations were less sensitive to accuracy and more sensitive to optimism during the recent stock market mania. Brokerage houses apparently reward optimistic analysts who promote stocks.     

Cash Flow Accounting and Liquidity: Cash Flow Potential and Wealth

The persistence of a minority interest in ‘cash flow accounting’ alongside the dominant financial reporting pattern that gives cash flow statements a distinctly secondary role in the line-up of flow statements suggests that something is missing from the analyses of the interested parties. The major theme of this paper is that users rely on historical cash flow reporting for information relevant to projecting enterprise liquidity in the short run, and on financial statements based on accrual-deferral accounting for information relevant to their interest in wealth and income. An explicit distinction between the two accounting objectives (providing information for use in assessing future enterprise liquidity and providing information for use in assessing enterprise wealth and income and performance against investors' augmentation-of-wealth objective) is recommended as a basis for clarifying the issues. That distinction suggests the value of two quite different, but related, sets of data: historical cash flows and stocks and flows of cash potentials.     

The Cash Flow Sensitivity of Cash

We model a firm's demand for liquidity to develop a new test of the effect of financial constraints on corporate policies. The effect of financial constraints is captured by the firm's propensity to save cash out of cash flows (the cash flow sensitivity of cash). We hypothesize that constrained firms should have a positive cash flow sensitivity of cash, while unconstrained firms' cash savings should not be systematically related to cash flows. We empirically estimate the cash flow sensitivity of cash using a large sample of manufacturing firms over the 1971 to 2000 period and find robust support for our theory.     

Cash Flow Matching

Abstract

We propose a scenario-based optimization framework for solving the cash flow matching problem where the time horizon of the liabilities is longer than the maturities of available bonds and the interest rates are uncertain. Standard interest rate models can be used for scenario generation within this framework. The optimal portfolio is found by minimizing the cost at a specific level of shortfall risk measured by the conditional tail expectation (CTE), also known as conditional valueat-risk (CVaR) or Tail-VaR. The resulting optimization problem is still a linear program (LP) as in the classical cash flow matching approach. This framework can be employed in situations when the classical cash flow matching technique is not applicable.     

Cash Flow and the Eurotunnel

The Channel Tunnel, a major international investment project funded approximately 80% by debt and 20% by equity, is expected to be completed by 1993. The Eurotunnel Offer for Sale document (published in November 1987) contained financial projections based on traditional accruals-based principles. This paper converts the published information to a cash flow-based format and critically assesses the depreciation, taxation, dividend and financing policy implications. The relevance of depreciation policy in cases of projects with finite lives is discussed, and the paper concludes that information prepared on cash flow-based principles provides an alternative and more useful perspective of the Eurotunnel operations.     

结构化信用:现金流与复合型担保债务凭证(摘登)

国际金融资产证券化市场始于20世纪70年代,商品种类多样化,其中担保债务凭证(Collateralized Debt Obligations,CDOs)是近年来成长极为迅速的证券化商品之一。由于担保债     

现金流至上

在利润目标的驱使下,管理者往往会忽视现金流的问题,不断通过超预算支出来扩张业务,提高经营业绩,实现短期利润目标,但在《管理的省悟》中,结合福田资金管理实践,张夕勇认为:公司应树立‘现金流比利润更重要’的观念,强调现金流在公司战略管理中的重要地位,把现金流作为企业运营成果的评价标准;公司决策的着眼点应定位于‘尽量提前收回现金’,切忌以牺牲长期现金流量来改善短期利润状况,避免出现‘良好的经营成果与堪忧的财务状况并存’的尴尬局面。     

从现金流切入

中小企业和银行合作,一定要找一两家银行做深度交往,让银行对企业产生比较多的关注。而与银行往来的最佳切入点,就是让银行为企业提供现金管理服务。广发银行贸易金融部销售总监兼现金管理部总经理杨延年在接受《新理财》专访时表示。     

The Effect of Issuing Biased Earnings Forecasts on Analysts' Access to Management and Survival

This study offers evidence on the earnings forecast bias analysts use to please firm management and the associated benefits they obtain from issuing such biased forecasts in the years prior to Regulation Fair Disclosure. Analysts who issue initial optimistic earnings forecasts followed by pessimistic earnings forecasts before the earnings announcement produce more accurate earnings forecasts and are less likely to be fired by their employers. The effect of such biased earnings forecasts on forecast accuracy and firing is stronger for analysts who follow firms with heavy insider selling and hard‐to‐predict earnings. The above results hold regardless of whether a brokerage firm has investment banking business or not. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that analysts use biased earnings forecasts to curry favor with firm management in order to obtain better access to management's private information.     

管控“现金流”

目前我国企业的现金流量管理还处于极低的水平。绝大多数企业实行的还是根据国家规定的现金开支范围和银行结算制度办理往来收付结算,以经验和内部牵制制度为主体的管理办法。可以采取     

自由现金流、现金股利与中国上市公司过度投资

处于经理人控制之下的自由现金流有可能被投入到损害公司价值的非盈利项目上，从而导致过度投资。股利代理成本理论认为，较高的股利支付水平可以迫使经理人“吐出”自由现金流，从而降低企业自由现金流代理成本。但本文实证研究表明，中国上市公司过度投资程度与现金股利支付水平无关。其原因在于，上市公司股利政策受到监管层政策驱动因素的影响，造成股利政策扭曲，并被“异化”为大股东“利益输送”的一种手段。     

Tender Offers and Free Cash Flow: An Empirical Analysis

High free cash flow firms are characterized by a mismatch between growth opportunities and resources. High free cash flow target firms receive higher-than-average abnormal returns. Target returns are lower when the bidder is a high free cash flow firm. During the 1970s, results suggested that cash-flow-rich bidding firms pursued low-benefit takeovers. During the 1980s, high free cash flow firms became the targets of tender offers. Results are consistent with the notion that reducing agency problems in target firms generates benefits and that bidding firms with large free cash flow undertake low-benefit acquisitions.     

管理层业绩报酬敏感度、内部现金流与企业投资行为——对自由现金流和信息不对称理论的一个检验

本文考察了业绩报酬敏感度对企业内部现金流与投资行为之间关系的影响。文章发现投资现金流敏感度不仅受到内外部信息不对称导致的融资约束的影响,而且受到了股东-经理代理问题的影响,但是信息不对称理论的解释力度相对较强。另外,投资现金流敏感度和管理层业绩报酬敏感度之间的关系受到公司控股股东所有权性质的影响。     

Q,Cash Flow and Investment: An Econometric Critique

The effects of measurement and specification error on estimates of the Q and cash flow model of investment are investigated. Two sources of error are considered: expensing of RcD expenditures and failing to identify that component of cash flow which relaxes financing constraints. We apply random-effects and instrumental variables estimators to a model that addresses these sources of error. We find that: (1) the capitalization of R& D strengthens the explanatory power of the model; (2) expected and unexpected components of cash flow have different effects; and (3) the effects of Q are much more evident in firms facing low costs of external finance.     

The Free Cash Flow Anomaly Revisited: Finnish Evidence

Abstract:  This paper examines the performance of an investment strategy based on free cash flows using financial statement data of Finnish companies during the period 1992-2002. The analysis in this paper is motivated by the so-called free cash flow anomaly previously documented e.g. in Hackel, Livnat and Rai (2000) . Using annual financial statement information, we identify large-capitalization companies with positive free cash flows, low free cash flow multiples, and low financial leverage. Since a portfolio of these companies is found to consistently outperform the market index, our results suggest that the free cash flow anomaly also exists in the Finnish stock market.