Financial Management is concerned with planning, directing, monitoring, organizing and

controlling monetary resources of an organization. Financial Management simply deals with

management of money matters. Management of funds is a critical aspect of financial management.
The process of financial management takes place: at the individual as well as organization levels.
Our area of dealing is from the view- point of organization.
Financial Management is a combination of two words, Finance and Management. Finance is
the lifeblood of any business enterprise. No business activity can be imagined, without finance. It
has been rightly said that business needs money to make more money. However, money begets
money, when it is properly managed. Efficient management of business is closely linked with
efficient management of its finances. Financial Management is that specialized function of general
management, which is related to the procurement of finance and its effective utilization for the
achievement of common goal of the organization
An Overview of Financial Management
I.

Business: functions and financial decisions

A.

Primary function of firm: produce goods and/or services

B.

Business finance or corporate finance = branch of finance dealing with financial decisions of
firms

C.

To produce goods and services, firms require capital

1.
Physical capital = buildings, machinery and other intermediate inputs in production
process
2.
Financial capital = stocks, bonds and loans used to finance acquisition of physical
capital

D.

Typical financial decisions by firms: (i) strategic planning, (ii) capital budgeting, (iii)
determining the firms capital structure, and (iv) working capital management
1.
1st financial decision firm makes:
a.
What business it wants to be in = strategic planning
b.
Strategic planning involves evaluation of cost and benefits spread over time
financial-decision making process
2.
2nd financial decision firm makes:
a.
Capital budgeting process = preparing plan to acquire factories, machinery,
research laboratories, showrooms, warehouses, and other long-lived assets
b.
Prepare plan to train personnel who will operate this physical capital
c.
Investment project = basic unit of analysis in capital budgeting
i.
Identify new investment projects
ii. Evaluate competing projects
iii. Decide which projects to undertake
iv. Implement new project
3.
3rd major financial decision
a.
Decide how to finance new project
b.
Determine capital structure = percentage of loans, bonds, common stock and
preferred stock that minimizes the cost of capital
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c.

4.

II.

Cost of capital = minimum rate of return an investment project must earn in order
not to diminish stockholder wealth = interest rate used to discount a projects
future cash flows in computing its present value
d.
Unit of analysis is the firm as a whole
th
4 major financial decision:
a.
Working capital management = day-to-day financial affairs of firm
b.
Cash flow: collecting from consumers, paying bills as they come due
c.
Need to finance cash-flow deficits and invest cash-flow surpluses

Forms of business organization

A.

Three different forms of business organizations

1.
Sole proprietorship = firm that has a single owner who is also the major manager of the
business
2.
Partnership = contractual relationship in which two or more people combine their
capital, skills, and knowledge to carry on a business
3.
Corporation = legal entity created by state government that has an existence separate
from that of its owners

B.

Relative distribution of business organizations

1.
The numbers:
a.
Sole proprietorships: 80% of all firms
b.
Partnerships: 10% of all firms
c.
Corporations: 10% of all firms
2.
Dollar value of sales:
a.
Corporations: 80% of all sales
b.
Sole proprietorships: 13% of all sales
c.
Partnerships: 7% of all sales
3.
Because most successful sole proprietorships and partnerships convert to corporations,
book focuses on corporations

C.

Sole proprietorship
1.
Advantages
a.
Ease of formation: easily and inexpensively formed
b.
Subject to few government regulations
c.
Pays no corporate income tax
2.
Disadvantages
a.
Difficult to obtain large sums of capital
b.
Unlimited liability = no legal distinction is made between personal and business
activities or assets and liabilities
c.
Limited life: limited to life of individual who created it

D.

Partnership: has roughly the same advantages and disadvantages as a sole proprietorship
1.
Advantages
a.
Low cost and ease of formation
b.
Pays no corporate income tax
2.
Disadvantages
a.
Unlimited liability
c.
Difficulty in transferring ownership
b.
Limited life
d.
Difficulty in raising large amounts of capital
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E.

Corporation
1.
Advantages
a.
Unlimited life
b.
Limited liability = liability of owners limited to the amount of capital they have
invested in the business
c.
Easy transfer of ownership
d.
Ease of raising capital: sell additional shares of stock to current or new
stockholders
2.
Disadvantages
a.
Double taxation: corporate earnings taxed at corporate tax rate, dividends taxed as
income to stockholders
b.
More complex and time consuming to set up. Cost of report filing.

F.

Deciding upon form of organization? Firms must trade off the advantages of incorporation
against disadvantages of possible higher tax disadvantage. Book argues corporate structure
usually maximizes value of business. Why?
1.
Limited liability risk borne by investors. firms risk firms value
2.
Corporations attract capital more easily than unincorporated business firms ability
to take advantage of growth opportunities firms value
3.
Because corporate stock is easier to sell than interests in sole proprietorship or
partnership corporate stock is more liquid than ownership in other forms of business
(Liquidity = ease of selling asset and converting it to cash at fair market value)
stock liquidity price of stock firms value

III. Stock prices and shareholder value

A.

Assume managements primary goal =maximize stockholder wealth maximize the price of
the firms common stock

B.

Stockholder wealth = (number of shares outstanding) x (market price per share)

C.

Market price of stock = present value of cash flows it provides to its owners over time

D.

Factors that affect stock price

1.
Projected cash flows to shareholders: cash flows stock price
2.
Timing of the cash flows: The earlier the receipt of the cash flows stock price
3.
Riskiness of cash flows: The less risky the cash flows stock price

IV. Intrinsic values and stock prices

A. The difference between a stocks intrinsic value and a stocks market price
1.
True investor return vs. perceived investor return and true risk vs. perceived
risk
2.
True = return and risk that most investors would expect if they had all the
information that exists about the company
3.
Perceived = what investors expect given the information that they actually have
B. Stocks intrinsic value
1.
Measure of stocks true value based on estimates of the true investor returns and
the true risk
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C.

D.

V.

2.
True value based on accurate risk and return data
3.
Intrinsic value can be estimated but not measured precisely
Stocks market price
1.
Based on marginal investors estimates of perceived investor returns and perceived
risk
2.
Based on perceived but possibly incorrect data
Stock prices: Disequilibrium and equilibrium values
1.
Disequilibrium: in short run stock price may deviate from its intrinsic value
a.
If actual market price > intrinsic value stock overvalued
b.
If actual market price < intrinsic value stock undervalued
2.
Equilibrium
a.
Situation where actual market price = intrinsic value
b.
Investors indifferent between buying or selling stock
3.
Management should take actions designed to maximize firms intrinsic value, not its
current price
a.
Maximizing intrinsic value will maximize average price over the long run
b.
Ideally managers should avoid actions that reduce intrinsic value, even if those
decisions increase stock price in short run

Some important trends

A.

Recent corporate scandals have reinforced importance of business ethics Have spurred
additional regulations and corporate oversight

B.

Continued globalization of business

C.

Changing information technology has profound effect on all aspects of business finance

VI. Separation of ownership and management: Common practice for owners of large firm to
delegate management responsibilities to professional managers
A.

Five reasons for separating management from ownership

1.
Find professional managers with superior ability in running business
2.
Efficient scale of business may pool resources of many households, not all who
can be actively involved in managing business
3.
Owners may want to diversify risk across many firms: efficient reduction of risk
may not be obtained without separation of ownership and management
4.
Separation of ownership and management reduces the cost of information
gathering
a.
Managers can gather most accurate data on firms production technology,
cost of inputs, and demand for products
b.
Owners need to relatively little about firms technology and the intensity at
which it is being used
5.
Learning curve favors separated management
a.
Suppose owner wants to sell all or part of firms technology now or at later
date. If owner was manager, new owners would have to learn technology
from former owner in order to manage it efficiently. Failure to separate
ownership and management reduces liquidity of assets.
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b.

If former owner wasnt the manager, new owners hire existing management
and work continues in place

B. Problem with separating ownership from management

1.
Principal agent problem
a.
Defn: Situation arising when agents do not make the same decisions that
the principals would have made if principals had the same information the
agents had and were making the decisions themselves
b.
Source of potential conflict of interests
2.
Problems cause by incomplete information or asymmetric information
a.
Owners dont know with certainty whether managers are acting in owners
best interests
b.
Because owners have incomplete information Managers have incentive
to maximize their interests and neglect their obligations to owners
3.
In those businesses where potential conflicts of interests between owners and
managers can be resolved at reasonable cost Expect to find that owners of
business firms will not be managers
C. Agency relationships
1.
An agency relationship arises whenever one or more individuals, called
principals, hire another individual, called an agent, to perform some service and
then delegate decision-making authority to that agent.
2.
Within a corporation, agency relationships exists between:
a.
Shareholders and managers
b.
Shareholders and creditors
3.
Moral hazard = agents take unobserved actions in their own behalf because it is
impossible for stockholders to monitor all managerial actions. Managers are
naturally inclined to act in their own best interests. Many people have argued that
agents'/managers= primary goal is to maximize the size of the firm. By creating
a large, rapidly growing firm, managers:
a.
job security because hostile takeover is less likely
b.
their own power, salary, and status
c.
opportunities for their lower- and middle-level managers
d.
bureaucracy
e.
perquisites = executive fringe benefits such as luxurious offices, executive
assistants, expense accounts, limousines, corporate jets, and generous
retirement plans
4.
Agency costs = costs borne by stockholders to encourage managers to maximize
the firm=s stock price rather than to act in their own self interest. Examples of
agency costs:
a.
Expenditures to monitor managerial actions such as audit costs
b.
expenditures to restructure firm to undesirable managerial behavior
appoint outside investors to board of directors
c.
Note agency costs have their own opportunity costs: shareholder imposed
restrictions may managers= ability to take timely actions to
stockholder wealth.
5.
Ways to encourage managers to act in best interest of stockholders:
a.
The threat of firing
b.
The threat of takeover
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6.

c.
Managerial compensation plans based on performance
d.
Direct intervention by shareholders
Shareholders vs. creditors
a.
Shareholders (through management) could take actions to maximize stock
price that are detrimental to creditors
b.
In the long run, such actions will raise the cost of debt and ultimately lower
the stock price.

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