Answer :

Executive summary

The assignment intends to cover the selected and chosen firms equity, cash flows and tax liability etc for the last 2 fiscal years. The assignment research would also aim at finding the movement in equity shareholders fund for the last few years and also the profitability associated with its operations. Further the analysis of the capital structure of the company would be undertaken to see if the company’s capital structure is risky and more debts are utilised in the same. The analysis would also strive to find if the company’s management is striving to reduce the debts present in the capital structure or not. In the last section the analysis would involve the assessment of the company’s tax liability, provisions for taxes, deferred taxes and liabilities and the cash rate of tax in the last two fiscal periods. 

A brief introduction of the companies chosen & overview of the Discussions 

Companies chosen for the assignment are Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Adelaide Brighton Limited.  

 1. Rio Tinto 

 2. BHP Billiton 

3.Adelaide Brighton Limited

BHP BILITON 

BHP Billiton Limited as in the last two three decades emerged as one of the largest mining and metals company in Australia. The BHP limited has spread its operations in 4 continents and has large mining operations involving Aluminium, copper and steel etc. it also happens to be one of the biggest employers in the country with over 65,000 employees and makes significant amount of EBIT per annum. However, the growth rates of the company and its profitability has suffered in the last few years because of competition in recent times and because of the worldwide slowdown in construction and building industry. Since the FY 2013 the BHP Limited has been headed by Andrew McKenzie. In 2016-2017 however the company has returned to remarkable growth territory. 

RIO TINTO

RIO Tinto happens to be the biggest competition for the BHP Billiton. The RIO Tinto company was formed in the year 1873 and ever since has spread its wing worldwide. The BHP limited has spread its operations in 4 continents and has large mining operations involving Aluminium, copper and steel etc. it also happens to be one of the biggest employers in the country with over 52,000 employees and makes significant amount of EBIT per annum. In the last financial year Rio Tinto limited achieved a revenue of $4obn USD and achieved a remarkable EBIT of $14 billion. The Assets of the company was much in excess of $100bn as of 30^th June 2018. 

Adelaide Brighton Limited

Adelaide Brighton is a company which deals with integrated construction materials including lime. The primary activities of the company involve infrastructure and construction and mineral processing etc. it also deals with clinker production and distribution, cements, industrial use lime and premixed concrete etc. the Adelaide Brighton is listed in the ASX and has currently one of the fastest growing companies with 1400 plus employees. 

1.3 Discussion of the Analysis 

Analysis in this research-based topic would involve the discussions surrounding shareholders equity and changes in the same and various cash flows segments of the three companies and tax liabilities of the same. 

Body of the Report and Analysis 

EQUITY & LIABILITY 

i) List of the items under Equity and understanding of the same and changes discussed. 

The items which are listed by the three entities in their financial statements are shown as follows:

In 2016, overall reserves for the BHP Billiton company was higher at $2538 m but the same was lower in 2017 at $2400 million because of significant decline in the firms hedging reserves and also because of payouts owing under employee share award reserves in 2017. The BHP Billiton Limited Retained Earnings (RE) increased significantly in 2017 from $49,542 million to $52,618 million  as a result of a good growth of profitability in 2017. In 2017 the BHP limited paid approx. 35% of the profits after tax as dividends to the shareholders (Belverd Needles; Susan Crosson;Matt Poers, 2011).  

Rio Tinto Plc holds share worth $220 million whereas Rio Tinto Limited holds bulk of the original shares issued worth $4,140.00 million. Due to some 32,397 shares cancelled by the Rio Tinto Plc in 2017 the total amount of holding has declined from $22 million to $220 million. 

The shareholders equity of the Rio Tinto limited has increased form a $45,730 million in 2016 to $51,117m in 2017. This is because of the significant increase in the firms reserves and retained earnings. As of 2017, the reserves of the Rio Tinto company included capital redemption reserves, hedging reserves, foreign currency translation reserves and revaluation reserves. However, the biggest reserves for the company is listed in the name of other reserves.  

For Adelaide Brighton limited the company has 618,396 shares under the Executive Performance Share Plan in 2017 and the same for the company in 2016 amounted to 768,352 shares amounting to a total of $2.2million and $1.7 million respectively. Retained earnings of the company has increased from $483.3 to $510.6 million as a result of the addition to the RE in the form of current profits after dividend payments in 2017. 

ii) List of the items under Liability and understanding of the same and changes discussed.

The items of liabilities  which are listed by the three entities in their financial statements are shown as follows:

Total liabilities for the BHP Billiton company is found to be the highest. The same is lowest for Adelaide Brighton company. The Total liabilities has increased for all the three companies in between 2016 and2017. 

iii) Comparative Analysis discussion of the Debts and Equity position of three companies.   

The Debt -Equity of the three companies are presented as follows:

As can be seen from the above calculations the Debt to equity ratio for all he three firms are quite varied. The debt to equity is the lowest for the Adelaide Brighton limited and this means the company’s financial risk is lowest among the three. Both Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton however has been able to reduce the debt to Equity in the last two years and continues to be of moderate risk bracket (ANTHONY A ATKINSON, 2012). 

CASH FLOWS STATEMENT 

i) the collection of the cash flow and items listed under the same for the three companies are shown as follows:

Cash flow statement is one of the most important statements in the annual reports and the same helps the investors know how the companies receive cash and from which sources and how the same cash is being spent by companies for meeting business needs and increasing the scope of the business. Cash flows listed by the chosen companies are shown as follows:

As evident form the above cash flow statement items all the three companies have been able to generate positive operating cash flows. However the Operating cash flow for Adelaide Brighton has declined in 2017 as against 2016, where as he same has increased for the BHP and RIO TINTO. 

 Investing cash flows on the other hand is negative for all the three companies in both the years. However, for BHP limited the cash flow on account of investing has declined considerably in 2017. 

The financing cash flows for BHP has been negative in 2017 but the same for the other companies are negative in both the years which means the companies are trying to pay off interest bearing debts and other long-term liabilities to reduce debt-equity imbalance. All the three analyzed companies including BHP Billiton and RIO Tinto have proceeded to report acquisition of new assets through new subsidiaries and joint ventures as well. However, the highest spending is done through acquisition of PPE (Deegan, 2015).RIO Tinto has undertaken a large amount share buyback programme in 2017 amounting to $2312.00 million. 

ii) Comparative Analysis of the cash flow categories 

Operating cash flows 

All the three companies have been able to generate positive operating cash flows. However, the Operating cash flow for Adelaide Brighton has declined in 2017 as against 2016, whereas the same has increased for the BHP and RIO TINTO. The decline in the positive cash inflows for the Adelaide Brighton company can be accounted to an increase in the payments to suppliers and higher income tax payments. 

Investing cash flows

All the three analysed companies including BHP Billiton and RIO Tinto have proceeded to report acquisition of new assets through new subsidiaries and joint ventures as well. However, for BHP limited the cash flow on account of investing has declined considerably in 2017 as compared to 2016. In the case of Adelaide Brighton company there is a significant increase in the investment in the form of property, plant, equipment and intangibles, Acquisition of new businesses and loans to other joint venture partners. In 2017 the company was able to generate significant cash inflows from the sale of assets such as PPE (KIMMEL, 2012).

Financing cash flows

The financing cash flows for BHP has been negative in 2017 but the same for the other companies are negative in both the years which means the companies are trying to pay off interest bearing debts and other long-term liabilities to reduce debt-equity imbalance.

iii) Insight from the comparative Analysis 

From the analysis of the cash flow statement the following insights have been observed:

1. While the investments of both the firms have been robust, the management of the BHP Billiton Limited is showing a conservative approach to new investments and is willing to undertake longer economic evaluation before committing funds. 
2. As investing is done sparingly more funds were made available by the BHP Billiton management used larger base of cash flows to pay off long term debts amounting to $7133 million and taken only $1500 million of new debts (Britton, 2012). 
3. It’s quite clear that the management of both the firms are willing to reduce debts and bring financial leverage significantly. 
4. In comparison to the strategy adopted by BHP, Rio Tinto management has identified growth opportunities and invested approx. $4,482 million in new long term assets. The funds committed in investing is 50% higher than what was committed in 2016. 
5. The management of Rio Tinto has also paid significantly higher dividend to make sure the stock prices are maintained at a steady value and shareholders not panic. However, Rio Tinto is yet to fully recover from the post 2012 debacle (Dagwell, 2014). 

OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME STATEMENT 

i) Items that have been reported in the OCI of the analysed company’s Financial statements.

Items which are shown below are found in the other comprehensive  income statement of BHP Billiton limited. 

1. Losses and gains arsing out of revaluation of assets  
2. Cash flow hedges (losses and gains) 
3. Exchange rate related gains and losses  
4. Taxes arising out of gains and losses on hedges and assets.  

Items which are shown below are found in the other comprehensive  income statement of RIO Tinto Limited and Adelaide Brighton Limited. 

1. Losses and gains arsing out of revaluation of assets  
2. Cash flow hedges (losses and gains) 
3. Exchange rate related gains and losses  
4. Taxes arising out of gains and losses on hedges and assets.  
5. Losses and gains arising because of gains on actuarial variations in relation to retirement obligations. 

Ii) Why the above items were not shown in the income statements?

These items were not included in the financial statements (income statements) because:

1. These items were found to be irregular items of earnings and losses and hence required to be reported separately. 
2. Many items in the OCI are of provisional nature and not realized yet by the company. 

iii) Comparative analysis of the items in OCI. 

1. A major portion of the OCI in the case of RIO Tinto has come from Hedging gains in 2017 amounting to $308 million. 
2. For the BHP Billiton company a major portion of the OCI have accrued in the form of losses and gains form hedging as well amounting to $32.4 million. 
3. For Adelaide Brighton limited a large portion of the OCI has come in the form of Exchange differences on translation of foreign operations ($.7 million) and Actuarial gain on retirement benefit obligations ($1.9million) (Carl S Warren, 2011) 

iv) Should other comprehensive income be included in evaluating the performance of managers of the company?

There is a general consensus among the analyst community that OCI must be included in the evaluation of the managerial performance because:

1.Managers are primarily responsible for the management of the cash assets, business operations and business of the foreign operations and hence they are responsible for the cash flows and gains. 

2. the mangers of the company are entrusted with the responsibility to avoid contingency losses and try to minimize any losses arraign out of foreign exchange transactions and translation exposures and hence they are entrusted with managing the hedging of cash flows (Dagwell, 2014). 

3.these managers are also given the additional responsibility of manning hedging requirements in relation to selection of the proper derivative instruments and carefully plan the same form time to time. (Britton, 2012). 

ACCOUNTING FOR CORPORATE INCOME TAX 

i) The tax expenses for the three companies. 

Tax expenses incurred by the 3 companies are shown below as follows:

ii) Calculation of the  effective tax rate for all three companies 

Effective tax rates are estimated as follows:

As evident BHP Billiton has the highest rates of tax among the three companies. 

iii) Deferred Tax assets/Liabilities 

In 2016, Adelaide Brighton Limited  has reported a deferred tax asset of $0 million and deferred tax liabilities  of $86  million. The same for the year 2017 has been $37.5 million and $89.9 million respectively (AdelaideBrightonAR, 2017-2018). 

In 2016, BHP Billiton Limited   has reported a deferred tax asset of $6,147.00 million and deferred  tax liabilities  of $4,324  million. The same for the year 2017 has been $5,788 million and $3,765 million respectively (AnnualReportBHPBiliton, 2017-2018). 

In 2016, Rio Tinto Limited has reported a deferred tax asset of $3,728  million and deferred tax liabilities of $3,121  million. The same for the year 2017 has been $3,395 million and $3,628 million respectively (RioTintoAnnualReport(notes27-28), 2017). 

iv)  increase or decrease in the deferred tax assets or in the deferred tax liability 

in the between the years the deferred tax assets have shown a tendency to rise for all the 3 firms for the deferred tax liabilities has increased for BHP Billiton and declined for the other two firms. 

v) Calculation of the cash tax amount 

the cash tax amount for the 3 firms are found out as follows:

vi) Calculation of the cash tax rate for all three companies. 

BHP Billiton’s cash tax rate  % = $2,077.00 m / $10,322.00 million = 20.10%. 

Adelaide Brighton’s Cash tax % = $19.90m / $254.4 m = 7.822%

Rio Tinto Limited’s cash tax % = $4,198.00 m / $12,816 m = 32.66% 

As evident from the above estimations the cash tax % is highest for the RIO Tinto Limited at 32.66% (Britton, 2012).

vii) Why is the cash tax rate different from the book tax rate?

The cash tax % for all the firms are found to be different form the tax rate as per the book profits or PBT simply because the actual cash tax paid because of differed tax adjustments are found to be lower than the current year provisions. The rate has also declined because of other adjustments made in the OCI (ANTHONY A ATKINSON, 2012). 

Conclusion

The BHP Billiton and RIO Tinto are dual listed firms with listings both in ASX and London (UK). However, both these firms suffered huge setbacks in the wake of recessionary conditions worldwide and particularly in the Chinese markets after 2012-2013. Since 2016 however both have taken steps to reduce costs significantly and has done better to grow new streams of revenue and paid better returns to the shareholders and also reduced risk comments by reducing the debts. The same has bene shown int heir declining Debt to Equity Ratios. However, the cash flows of the Adelaide Brighton limited is little lesser than expected and it has been lower in 2017. However despite a sizable growth of revenue in 2017 , the company suffered declining margin because of increase in direct and operating costs. The management of the Adelaide Brighton would need to identify costs which are not necessary and increasing operating margins for ensuring better cash flows in the coming years (Carl S Warren, 2011).