The Art of Reading Financial Statements

Service Description

Financial statements appear complex and long, their reading requires judgment and practice, people do not know where to start reading and what to look for or people read financial statements in a linear/sequential way without being able to grasp the main elements even red flags related to the company. This course intends to teach you the main reading keys to read. I took the approach writing this course by looking back myself on what I was missing from my teachers & professors in my accounting & corporate finance classes. After taking the course you will be able to : 1. Identify & understand accounting standard used IFRS, US GAAP or Local GAAP 2. Differentiate between 3 main types of financial statements (balance sheet, cash flow & income statement) 3. Understand the fundamental accounting principles like going concern, fair valuation, principle of prudence, accrual vs cash accounting, etc. 4. Understand & identify main corporate governance elements including corporate governance 1- or 2-tier models, role of shareholders & board of directors 5. Understand role of statutory auditor, being able to identify if a report is audited or unaudited; if audited identify who the statutory auditor is, tenure of statutory auditor, comments about statutory auditor’s independence/conflict of interest / related fees and audit opinion 6. Understand the scope of consolidation (& unconsolidation) of the reporting company and the 4 methods how subsidiaries can be (or not) consolidated into financial statements 7. Be able to do a vertical analysis of the balance sheet and understand main profit generating assets and also the sourcers of capital in the balance sheet 8. Identify sources of capital including long-term debt and its related schedule, cost to service long-term debt including interest coverage ratio, equity capital source including potential retained earnings 9. Deepen understanding of value creation for shareholders by understanding ROIC & WACC 10. Understand profitability of company by analysing revenue segments (if available) & cash generating assets, understand operating cash flow & working capital vs financing & investing cash flows and be able to read earnings information The course also contains many practical examples as in all of my courses. We will practice & discussion financials of companies like Kelloggs, Mercedes, Telefonica, 3M, Evergrande, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Unilever, Wells Fargo, Wirecard, CostCo and many more. Thank you