Learn to Play the Earnings Game Essay Example

Learn to Play the Earnings Game Essay Example Learn to Play the Earnings Game Essay Learn to Play the Earnings Game Essay Learn to Play the Earnings Game (and Wall Street Will Love You) The pressure to report smooth, ever higher earnings has never been fiercer. You dont want to miss the consensus estimate by a pennyand you dont have to. By Justin Fox In January, for the 41st time in the 42 quarters since it went public, Microsoft reported earnings that met or beat Wall Street estimates The 36 brokerage analysts who make the estimates were, as a group, quite happy about this the 57 cents per share announced by the software giant was above their consensus of 51 cents, but not so far above as to make them look stupid.Investors were happy too, bidding the already high-priced shares of the company up 4% the first trading day after the announcement. In short, for yet another quarter, Microsoft had kept its comfortable spot in the innermost sphere of corporate paradise. This is what chief executives and chief financial officers dream of: quarter after quarter after blessed quarter of not disappointing Wall Street.Sure, they dream about other things too mega-mergers, blockbuster new products, global domination. But the simplest, most visible, most merciless measure of corporate success in the 1990s has become this one: did you make your earnings last quarter? This is new. Executives of public companies have always strived to live up to investors expectations, and keeping earnings rising smoothly and predictably has long been seen as the surest way to do that.But its only in the past decade, with the rise to prominence of the consensus earnings estimates compiled first in the early 1970s by I/B/E/S (it stands for Institutional Brokers Estimate System) and now also by competitors Zacks, First Call and Nelsons, that those expectatio ns have become so explicit. Possibly as a result, companies are doing a better job of hitting their targets: for an unprecedented 16 consecutive quarters, more SP 500 companies have beat the consensus earnings estimates than missed them.Microsofts prodigious record of beating expectations is due in large part to the companys prodigious growth, from annual revenues of $198 million at the time of its IPO in 1986 to more than $9 billion now. It also helps that it dominates its industry. But even the Microsofts of the business world have a few tricks up their sleeve. The most obvious is to manage earnings. Managing earnings has a pejorative, slightly sleazy ring to it, but even at the most respected of companies accounting and business decisions are regularly made with smoothing or temporarily boosting earnings in mind.Not all are as up front about it as General Electric, where executives say openly that they dont think their company would be as popular with investors if its profits wer ent so consistent and predictable. But neither can it be a complete coincidence that of the top ten companies on Fortunes 1997 Most Admired list, sevenCoca-Cola, Merck, Microsoft, Johnson Johnson, Intel, Pfizer, and Procter and Gamblehave missed fewer than five quarters in the past five years, according to I/B/E/S (and two of the other three dont have any earnings estimates to meet.Meeting the estimates is made easier by the fact that theyre not set in a vacuum-analysts rely heavily on guidance from companies to form their forecasts, and companies have in recent years figured out that it pays to guide the analysts to a lower rather than a higher number. At least partly as a result of this expectational interplay, the price of missing a quarter has risen sharply, particularly among high priced growth stocks.In the growth stock fraternity, missing by a penny now implies the height of corporate boneheadedness that is, if you couldnt find that extra penny to keep Wall Street happy, th en your company must really be in trouble, and since missing by a 1 penny is already going to send your stock plummeting, youre better off missing by a dime or two and saving those earnings for the next quarter. Microsoft missed by a penny once back in 1988, when such behavior was not yet considered unbearable gauche.Nowadays its executives treat analysts to a constant patter of cautionary and even downbeat words about the future that the analysts say is a combination of genuine paranoia and astute expectations management. After a typically grim presentation by CEO Bill Gates and sales chief Steve Ballmer at an analysts meeting two years ago, Goldman Sacks analyst Rick Sherlund ran into the pair outside and said, Congratulations. You guys scared the hell out of people. Their response? They gave each other a high-five, Sherlund recalls.But Microsoft, unlike some companies less attuned to the rules of this game, also lets analysts know when theyre too pessimistic. Thats what CFO Mik e brown did, along with the usual warnings about slower growth ahead, during his regular quarterly conference call after the January 17 earnings release. He told the hundreds of analysts, money managers, and journalists listening in that earnings would be more than a nickel, less than a dime higher than predicted for the current quarter, and another penny higher in the next.How did he know this? That involves something that looks a lot like earnings managementalthough not of the sort that provokes penalties from the Securities and Exchange Commission or nasty newspaper articles about inflated profits. Starting around the unveiling of Windows 95 in August 1995, Microsoft has followed a uniquely conservative How the pros do it: method of accounting for the Plan ahead: Time store openings or asset sales to keep software it shipsdeferring earnings rising smoothly.In most cases, this is earnings recognition of large chunks of management at its least controversial. The master of this is r evenue from a product until long General Electric. after the product is sold. The Call it a sale: Madly ship products during the final days of a reasoning is that when weak quarter, or hold off if the quarters in the bag. Theres somebody buys software in leeway in revenue recognition too! Tech companies often 1996, theyre also buying the book sales aggressively to boost profits, but Microsoft is right to upgrades and customer support in 1997 and 1998.If it now demonstrating the virtues of belated recognition. hadnt been for the new Capitalize it: Usually its pretty clear what costs you accounting technique, the capitalize and which you expense. But there are gray areascompany would have had to -software RD is oneand you can get creative about the report a sharp rise in profits in length of time an asset should be depreciated. America the latter half of 1995, then a Online was, until it stopped in October, a noted aggressive sharp drop in the first half of capitalizer. 996 a turn of events that might Write it off: Take a big bath and charge a few hundred have sent its stock price reeling million in restructuring costs, and meeting future earnings instead of the smoothly rising targets will be easier. earnings that it did post. By the end of 1996, Microsoft had taken Use your reserves: Build them up for product returns, bad in $1. 1 billion in unearned loans, and insurance losses; drain them down to bolster revenue that it had yet to earnings when business sags. Outsiders say this is one of recognize on its income the secrets of GEs success, but the company says thats statements. Because of this, just not true. they know what theyve got in the bag from one quarter to the next, says Marshall Senk, a Robertson Stephens analyst who follows the company. Which led him to conclude that Microsoft does a better job of leveraging accounting I would almost say its a competitive weapon than anybody else in the industry. Microsoft treasurer Greg Maffei doesnt like this interpretation. Im a financial officer of this company, and I would be in deep doo-doo with the SEC if that was what was driving our revenue recognition policies, he says. Our revenue recognition policies are driven by GAAP. That isnt quite true. In fact, GAAP-the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles companies follow in preparing financial statementsmay in this area be driven by Microsoft, Virtually no other software company does its accounting the way Microsoft does, but standards setters, egged on by the industry leader, are starting to push in that direction. Thats how GAAP works. Its constantly changing and evolving, particularly in businesses that havent been around for long. This is only natural, but it can be maddening for people trying to understand what a companys reported earnings really mean. With industries that havent been in the market before, you tend to see a lot of monkey business because accountants, even if well intentioned dont know what the standards are, sa ys Martin Fridson, high-yield debt strategist at Merrill Lynch and a financial statement analysis guru. Underwriters of small companies and people who make a living doing IPOs are very conscious of the markets inability to see what the correct measures are. Add that confusion to the general cacophony of accounting quirks and judgment calls in financial statements, and you begin to realize that earnings are nothing but a vague, approximate measure anyway.One of modern accountings guiding principles is that of matching revenues and expenses over time. Thats why the cost of building a factory that will be churning out cars for 20 years gets expensed over those 20 years, not when the money is actually spent. But such matching requires making all sorts of guesses and estimates about the future. These judgments how much to set aside for potential loan losses, what rate of return to expect on a pension fund, over how many years to spread out the cost of a factory make earnings a better reflection of the long-term economic health of a company.They also provide ample room for managers to fudge. This is why financial analysts and money managers are supposed to know how to look beyond a companys bottom line to find the true economic value in its balance sheet or cash flow statement or, best of all the footnotes to its financial statements. In the bull market of the past 15 years, however, analytic rigor hasnt always been required to make good stock picks. Nobodys paying attention says Robert Olstein, who in 1970 co-authored an influential newsletter called the Quality of Earnings Report and now runs the $140 million Olstein Financial Alert fund. If Microsoft is the archetype of a hugely successful company trying to tone its earnings down so people dont get their expectations too high, Boston Chicken bespeaks an altogether different and more common phenomenon. It is a business that isnt successful yet, but has used accounting to help convince investors that it already is, or at least will be soon.This has enabled it to raise more than $800 million in stock and convertible debt offerings, money which has been essential not only to the companys rapid growth from 175 Boston Chicken restaurants when it went public in one of the decades hottest IPOs in November 1993 to 1,100 restaurants (rechristened Boston Markets) and 325 Einstein Brothers and Noahs bagel stores today but to its very survival. Thats because, economically speaking, Boston Chicken is still a big money loser, as probably can be expected of a startup restaurant chain.All the losses, however, have been incurred by financed area developers, or FADs, which is Boston Chicken lingo for large-scale franchisees that act a lot like subsidiaries but arent. If they were, their losses would have to lie reported on Boston Chickens income statement (they are instead disclosed, on an annual basis only, deep in the text of the companys SEC filings). The FADs get 75% of their startup capital in loans from Boston Chicken, and with that money they pay the company the royalties, franchise fees, and interest that allow it to report ever-rising profits.Once the restaurants start making money, Boston Chicken exercises its right to convert the loans into equity, officially dubbing the FADs subsidiaries and allowing their profits to flow to its bottom line. Thats the plan, at least, as outlined with somewhat more delicacy in the companys 1993 annual report. And so far it has worked. Sure, business publications have printed nasty articles about the company, accounting professors have warned their students about it, and short sellers have lined up in droves to place bets that its stock price will crash. But Boston Chickens stock price has more than held its own.Part of investors sanguinity has to do with the track record of the two former Blockbuster Entertainment bigwigs who run it, CEO Scott Beck and President Saad Nadhir, and the belief that America really is hungry for takeout chicke n, ham, and meat loaf. But it sure doesnt hurt, analysts and money managers say, that not only is Boston Chicken able to report earnings every quarter, but those earnings have so far never failed to meet or surpass analysts expectationseven though those analysts all know that the earnings in no significant way reflect how the company is doing. Its a very smart strategy, says Michael Moe, a growth stock strategist at Montgomery Securities. It has made enormous amounts of capital available to them at an attractive price that most companies can only dream of. Boston Chicken CFO Mark Stephens says his company was structured not to please Wall Street but to provide flexibility and motivate its franchisees. But he acknowledges that a byproduct of where we are with the structure is that we have a public entity with an earnings complexion that is attractive. He adds: Its like sausage. I love the product; just dont show me how its made. Another company that has used aggressive accounting t o raise money is America Online. AOLs practice of capitalizing and writing off over two years the cost of those ubiquitous free disks and ads it used to lure members was highly controversial and was abandoned in October. But for years it allowed the company to post earnings most of the time instead of losses, which helped it to raise more than $350 million on the stock market.Says Wharton School accounting professor Richard Sloan, referring to both Boston Chicken and AOL: They just view accounting as another marketing tool that they should use to try and promote their ideas. Boston Chicken and America Online are extreme cases. So is Microsoft. The mass of companies lead lives somewhere in between. When they manage earnings, they do it simply to smooth the ups and downs of business life, and of course to meet those Wall Street earnings estimates. Is there evidence of widespread earnings management? You bet. Looking at 17 years of I/B/E/S data on more than 1,000 companies, Jeff Payne of the University ofMississippi and Sean Robb of Canadas Wilfrid Laurier University found an unmistakable pattern of using accruals (i. e. , judgment calls) to manage earnings upward if they were below the analysts consensus and a somewhat less pronounced trend of managing them downward if they were above the consensus. General Electric, a company whose name invariably comes up when you ask Wall Streeters about earnings management, says it does what it does because the stock market demands it. We think consistency of earnings and no surprises is very important for us, says Dennis Dammerman, the companys CFO. Were a very complex, diverse company that no one from the outside looking in can reasonably be expected to understand in complete detail; so our story to the investing world is, we have a lot of diverse businesses, and when you put them all together they produce consistent, reliable earnings growth. And if something inconsistent comes along say a one-time gain from selling off a factory we have a pretty consistent record of saying, Okay, were going to take these large gains and offset them with discretionary decisions, with restructurings. These tactics have helped GE meet or beat expectations every quarter but one in the past five years, and they certainly havent hurt it among investors, even skeptical ones. They are using all sorts of techniques to smooth earnings, says Howard Schilit, whose Center for Financial Research and Analysis keeps institutional investors posted on companies earnings numbers may be hiding business troubles. If I wrote that to my clients, there would be a big yawn. Another investor favorite that produces awfully smooth earnings is Coca-Cola, which in the third quarter of last year took advantage of $520 million in one-time gains from a settlement with the IRS and the sale of some bottling operations to recognize $500 million in supposedly one-time hits. One of those hits, $200 million used to reduce the inventories of soft dri nk concentrate at bottling companies, was explained as a move to free up bottlers capital but was seen as an admission by Coke that it had been shipping concentrate early to artificially boost earnings.That hurt the companys stock price for a few months, but by taking the charge Coke gave itself the option of using inventory buildup at its bottlers to pad profits later. When they pull it out in 1998 or 1999 to keep up their 19% or 20% earnings growth, everyone will have forgotten, says Boy Burry, who follows Coke for Oppenheimer Co. Will everyone really forget? If financial markets are in fact efficient, economic reality will in the long run win out over accounting games.But the long run can seem awfully far away when youve got a posse of analysts breathing down your neck every three months. Many corporate executives also seem to think investors take earnings numbers at face value; they write outraged letters to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, accountings top rule-making body, whenever it proposes a change that might reduce reported earnings. They obviously dont believe in efficient markets, says Neel Foster, a FASB member and former treasurer of Compaq Computer. Academic evidence shows that generally, accounting changes dont result in changes in stock prices. But it also shows that people that make greater disclosures generally have a lower cost of capital. They dont believe that either. Even this doesnt explain why some companies seem to persist in managing earnings in the face of Wall Street disbelief. Food maker H. J. Heinz grew rapidly during the 1980s but has since needed repeated asset sales and other special items to keep earnings steadyand its stock has lagged.Last June the company announced quarterly earnings of 45 cents a share but failed to mention that four of those cents came from the sale of a magazine and two pet food brands. It was immaterial, a company spokesman says now, but it nevertheless infuriated some analysts, who found out only when they received the annual report a month later It didnt help the stock price either, although the stock later bounced back on rumors of a major restructuring. What might motivate such corporate behavior?One answer is money. High-level executives like to get paid a lot, and it so happens that many bonus plans including the one at Heinzare built around meeting earnings targets. The rise of performance related It so happens†¦ that many bonuses has taken earnings tweaking to new heights, say some executive bonus plans are market watchers. Theres no reliable measure of such activity, but built around meeting one rough gauge, comparing profits reported to the Internal earnings targets. Revenue Service by U. S. orporations with profits reported to shareholders (the measure that counts for bonuses) by companies on the SP 500, gives a clue. It shows some wild relative swings in SP earnings in the late 1980s and early 1990s, probably a result of big corporations using one tim e charges to pay for restructuring costs like plant closures. This write-off binge ended in 1994. Which could mean either that earnings quality is getting better or that companies are coasting to ever-higher earnings now because they hid ongoing costs back then.While theres no conclusive proof that managing earnings is on the rise, it is undeniable that the game is being played more aggressively than ever. This isnt necessarily bad. The good side of what a lot of people call the game of managing expectations is that companies realize that they have to give better guidance to the market as to what their prospects are, says Ed Keon, senior vice president for marketing at I/B/E/S.The downside of giving better guidance-apart from the hours of valuable top management time that it eats up is that the investors most interested in the estimates are not exactly the well-run corporations best friend. They are the momentum guys mutual fund managers and hedge fund jockeys and individual invest ors who jump on the bandwagon when a companys earnings growth is accelerating and beating the analysts estimates, and jump off the second it misses a quarter. When it stops, they sell you cannot break this algorithm, says a resigned Eric Benhamou, chief executive of 3Com Corp. which lost $7 billion in market value in a matter of weeks this year as it became known that its earnings for the quarter ended February 25 would nor not meet analysts expectations. The moral of the story: Unless youre a trader, ignore the short-term kabuki that the companies and the analysts perform for each other, but educate yourself about the accounting games that companies play. If enough investors did, it could mean that the smartest earnings and expectations management strategy of the 2000s will be dont bother.

Biography of Sam Houston, Founding Father of Texas

Biography of Sam Houston, Founding Father of Texas Sam Houston (March 2, 1793–July 26, 1863) was an American frontiersman, soldier, and politician. As commander of the forces fighting for Texas’ independence, he routed the Mexican troops at the Battle of San Jacinto, which essentially won the struggle. Over his long career, he was a successful and effective statesman, serving as congressman and governor of Tennessee and the first and third president of the Republic of Texas, before becoming a U.S. senator and governor for the state of Texas. Fast Facts: Sam Houston Known For: After winning the Battle of San Jacinto, which effectively won the Texas War of Independence, Houston was the founding statesman of Texas, serving as the first president of the Republic of Texas, then a U.S. senator and governor for the state of Texas.Born: March 2, 1793 in Rockbridge County, VirginiaParents: Samuel Houston and Elizabeth (Paxton) HoustonDied: July 26, 1863 in Huntsville, TexasEducation: Minimal formal education, self-taught, founded Cherokee school, read law in Nashville under Judge James TrimblePositions and Offices: Attorney general for Nashville Tennessee, U.S. congressman for Tennessee, governor of Tennessee, major general of the Texas Army, first and third president of the Republic of Texas, U.S. senator for Texas, governor of TexasSpouse(s): Eliza Allen, Diana Rogers Gentry, Margaret Moffette LeaChildren: With Margaret Moffette Lea: Sam Houston, Jr., Nancy Elizabeth, Margaret, Mary William, Antoinette Power, Andrew Jackson Houston, William Rogers, Te mple Lea HoustonNotable Quote: Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may. Early Life Houston was born in Virginia in 1793 to a middle-class family of farmers. They went West early, settling in Tennessee- which was, at that time, part of the western frontier. While still a teenager, he ran off and lived among the Cherokee for a few years, learning their language and their ways. He took a Cherokee name for himself: Colonneh, which means Raven. Houston enlisted in the American army for the War of 1812, serving in the west under Andrew Jackson. He distinguished himself for heroism at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against the Red Sticks, Creek followers of Tecumseh. Early Political Rise and Fall Houston soon established himself as a rising political star. He had allied himself closely to Andrew Jackson, who in turn came to see Houston as a protà ©gà ©. Houston ran first for Congress and then for governor of Tennessee. As a close Jackson ally, he won easily. His own charisma, charm, and presence also had a great deal to do with his success. It all came crashing down in 1829, however, when his new marriage fell apart. Devastated, Houston resigned as governor and headed west. Sam Houston Goes to Texas Houston made his way to Arkansas, where he lost himself in alcoholism. He lived among the Cherokee and established a trading post. He returned to Washington on behalf of the Cherokee in 1830 and again in 1832. On the 1832 trip,  he challenged anti-Jackson Congressman William Stanberry to a duel. When Stanberry refused to accept the challenge, Houston attacked him with a walking stick. He was eventually censured by Congress for this action. After the Stanberry affair, Houston was ready for a new adventure, so he went to Texas, where he had purchased some land on speculation. He was also charged with reporting to Jackson about the political climate and events in Texas. War Breaks out in Texas On October 2, 1835, hotheaded Texan rebels in the town of Gonzales fired on Mexican troops who had been sent to retrieve a cannon from the town. These were the first shots of the Texas Revolution. Houston was delighted: by then, he was convinced that Texas separation from Mexico was inevitable and that the fate of Texas lay in independence or statehood in the United States. He was elected head of the Nacogdoches militia and would eventually be appointed major general of all Texan forces. It was a frustrating post, as there was little money for paid soldiers and the volunteers were hard to manage. The Battle of the Alamo and the Goliad Massacre Sam Houston felt that the city of San Antonio and the Alamo fortress were not worth defending. There were too few troops to do so, and the city was too far from the rebels east Texas base. He ordered Jim Bowie to destroy the Alamo and evacuate the city. Instead, Bowie fortified the Alamo and set up defenses. Houston received dispatches from Alamo commander William Travis, begging for reinforcements, but he could not send them as his army was in disarray. On March 6, 1835, the Alamo fell. All 200 or so defenders fell with it. More bad news was on the way, however: on March 27, 350 rebel Texan prisoners were executed at Goliad. The Battle of San Jacinto The Alamo and Goliad cost the rebels dearly in terms of numbers of soldiers and morale. Houstons army was finally ready to take the field, but he still had only about 900 soldiers, far too few to take on General Santa Annas  Mexican army. He dodged Santa Anna for weeks, drawing the ire of the rebel politicians, who called him a coward. In mid-April 1836, Santa Anna unwisely divided his army. Houston caught up with him near the San Jacinto River. Houston surprised everyone by ordering an attack on the afternoon of April 21. The surprise was complete and the battle was a total rout  with 700 Mexican soldiers killed,  about half of the total. The other Mexican soldiers were captured, including General Santa Anna. Although most of the Texans wanted to execute Santa Anna, Houston did not permit it. Santa Anna soon signed a treaty recognizing Texas independence which effectively ended the war. President of Texas Although Mexico would subsequently make several half-hearted attempts to re-take Texas, independence was essentially sealed. Houston was elected the first president of the Republic of Texas in 1836. He became president again in 1841. He was a very good president, attempting to make peace with Mexico and the Native Americans who inhabited Texas. Mexico invaded twice in 1842 and Houston always worked for a peaceful solution; only his unquestioned status as a war hero kept more bellicose Texans from open conflict with Mexico. Later Political Career Texas was admitted to the United States in 1845. Houston became a senator from Texas, serving until 1859, at which time he became governor of Texas. The nation was wrestling with the slavery issue at the time and Houston was an active participant in the debate, opposing secession. He proved a wise statesman, working always toward peace and compromise. He stepped down as governor in 1861 after the Texas legislature voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. It was a difficult decision, but he made it because he believed that the South would lose the war and that the violence and cost would be for naught. Death Sam Houston rented the Steamboat House in Huntsville, Texas in 1862. His health took a downturn in 1862 with a cough that turned into pneumonia. He died on July 26, 1863, and is buried in Huntsville. The Legacy of Sam Houston The life story of Sam Houston is a gripping tale of rapid rise, fall, and redemption. His second, greatest ascent was remarkable. When Houston came west he was a broken man, but he still had just enough prior fame to immediately take an important role in Texas. A one-time war hero, he prevailed again at the Battle of San Jacinto. His wisdom in sparing the life of the defeated Santa Anna is considered to have been crucial to sealing Texas independence. Through this second rapid rise, Houston was able to put his more recent troubles behind him and become the great man that had seemed to be his fate as a young man. Later, Houston governed Texas with great wisdom. In his career as a senator from Texas, he made many prescient observations about the Civil War that he feared was on the nations horizon. Today, many Texans consider him among the greatest heroes of their independence movement. The city of Houston is named after him, as are countless streets, parks, and schools. Sources Brands, H.W. Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story of the Battle for Texas Independence. Anchor Books, 2004.Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and its War with the United States. Hill and Wang, 2007.Kreneck, Thomas H. â€Å"Houston, Samuel.†Ã‚  The Handbook of Texas Online| Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), 15 June 2010.Sam Houston Memorial Museum.