Sengupta Fibres Ltd: Short Essay On Indian Textile Co.

Write a short note on Sengupta Fibres Ltd. company.

Sengupta Fibres Ltd. is an Indian company, which use to manufacture and supply nylon yarns to the various textile mills. Presently, it has been discovered that the company is running out of cash funds. Moreover, All-India Bank & Trust Company, who used to provide funds to the company in terms of short-term loans, has also decline to provide further credits due to failing in timely repayments of the loans.
The financial projection plan, prepared by the bookkeeper of the company, for further continuation of the credit facility is not up to mark. The management requires a proper justified planning, that can able to earn more profit for the company and help the company to satisfy the bank for credit extension.

In the recent times Sengupta Fibres Ltd. has faced several problems related to meet the timely demand by the customers. The tax inspector responsible for clearing of the trucks restricted the clearing of the trucks stationed at warehouse due to the nonpayment of the tax by the company. The company needed to make the full payment in cash, but the bookkeeper noticed that the company had already overdrawn its bank account. This problem was becoming very frequent and as the truck drivers were independent contractors, they refused to wait for the entire procedure to complete, which was made between the company and the government authorities. The rising problem relating to the availability of the liquid cash by the company raised further questions by All India Bank & Trust company who requested Mrs. Sharma to have an appointment and discuss about regaining of the liquidity positioning of the firm. According to Mrs. Sharma, the cash problem was very usual to occur for a profit making company like Sengupta Fibres Ltd (DeYoung et al.,2015).

The main amount of the company’s demand for the fibers is affected due to seasonal fluctuations. The main units of demand for the fiber products are caused in the diwali festival due to the rise in the demand of the nylon textiles in the late summer and early winter. The main fluctuation in the price of the company is observed mainly because of the competition among the suppliers mainly observed among the textile weaving mills to these merchants and various changes in then prices are observed by the credit that the mills grant to the various type of the merchants. The yarn manufacturers of the company responsive for the business of the mills through various type of service and credit. It was observed that the suppliers of the firm were provided with little credit to support their operations in the textile industry. It was also observed that the lean profit margin of the company led to the overproduction of the fiber material and this led to the overstocking of the fiber materials. This led to increased carrying cost of the company especially in the slack selling season of the company. The company had further observed a seasonal production plan which meant that the it would be operational at the highest capacity of the firm for a period of three months, this decision by the company led to several layoffs and employee retrenchment by the company. In order to ensure eth prompt service by the company the company ensured to hire two distributional warehouses which would help the company in reaching to the yarn units at a quick pace. But the problem was prevalent due to the narrowing down of the roads and slowing down of the traffic. This in turn increased the waiting time of the company and led to higher holding costs in the warehouse area if the delivery zone.

Base on the several, type of the financial, projection it was observed that the company had a steady collection of the sales with an increase by 40 percent. The value of the raw material by the company showed a total of 55 percent of the total value if the sales expectation which was to be made two months later. The cash balance observed by the company was observed to be Rs. 640000 and the company took credit support from All India Bank & Trust company. Although company was known for maintaining an adequate amount of the cash balance at the bank but the company significantly lacked in the maintaining the finances with an increasing inflation and the interest rate was further predicted to increase in the coming year (Moro & Fink, 2013). This led to the company’s decision for clearing of the credit line which needed to be cleared for minimum of thirty days every year. It was further observed that the clean up month for the company was in the October but the company had failed to make the full payment on time. The company took several amount of credit from then bank in order to suffice its various requirements arising out of the overdrawing of the accounts (Zeidan et al., 2015).

Rationale for shortage of cash

The repercussion of the less availability of the liquid finance of the company has already showed its impact in making the payment to the tax inspector for the clearance of the trucks. Thus this situation of the company will further lead to labor unrest and the company’s stability of the operational side will face lot of challenges from the external forces caused due to the labor. The lower amount of liquid cash with the company will further lead to issues in making of the payment to the vendors on time. It has been observed that the company has taken several financial help from the bank. Due to these debts of the company will keep on increasing and it starts to lose its financial edge gained from the previous years (Arping, 2014).

The forecast plan has been prepared on the basis of general assumptions. As per the forecast, prepared by Mr.Ashok, the gross sale is expected to increase by 19.75% from the last year. The actual sales of 1989 had increased by 17.65% from 1988. Therefore, the forecasted growth rate is quite satisfactory.
From deeper analysis, it has been observed that there are many flaws in the forecast plan of Mr.Ashok. The forecast plan includes many miscalculations and improper estimations. Along with that, the historical records are also showing inaccurate financial figures.
The net profits of 1988 and 1989 are shown at higher value than the actual figures as the depreciation shown in the historical income statements are not deducted from the gross profits. The expected net profit for 1990 is also wrongly calculated. The corrected values are shown in the following table:-

From the figures, shown in the table, it can be stated that the historical and forecasted income statements, prepared by Mr.Ashok, was exhibiting inflated profits. As per the table, the company had earned 31.04% lesser profit in 1989 in comparison to 1988 and expected to earn further 53.05% lesser profit in 1990 from 1989.
The major costs, such as purchase, wages, operating expenses etc., are calculated and forecasted on the basis of the sales volume. But it has been noticed that the monthly sales projection, provided by Mr. Ashok, is not proper. The growth rate of the monthly projected sales volume in comparison to the actual monthly sales of the last year is given below:-
Month Actual Sales 1989 Forecasted Sales 1990 Change in Sales

The table depicts that Mr.Ashok has calculated the sales volume for the seasonal period at 15% growth rate, which is quite lower than the growth rates charged for the other periods. Generally, it is expected that the seasonal products will be sold at higher growth rates than the lean seasons. But, Mr.Ashok has projected that the increase in the sales volume on seasonal period will be lesser than that of at the lean seasons. If the projection would be made as per general norms, then the projection report will show higher sales volumes. In that case, the company will have some chance to represent a reasonable financial plan to the lending officers.
The growth rates of the incomes & expenses are shown below by analyzing the revised statement horizontally in the following table:-
Horizontal Analysis of Income Statement

The real matter of concern for the company as per the forecast plan is the profit margins. The forecast plan shows that the company had increased its gross profit by 2.94% on 1989. But in the year 1990, the gross profit is forecasted to go down by 3.34% from the actual gross profit of the previous year. Last year, the net profit had reduced by 31.04%, whereas, in the coming year, it is expected to reduce by 53.05%.
The vertical analysis of the income statement is shown below:-
Vertical Analysis of Income Statement

The above chart depicts that the current assets have increased by 40.62%, whereas, the current liabilities have increased by 219.68%, Such high increase in the current liabilities has caused the liquidity position to fall drastically. Moreover, the accounts receivable and inventory have increased significantly, but the cash balance has fallen down, which has led the company to suffer from shortage of cash funds. Moreover, the owners equity has also reduced as the company has to spent the capital funds more for the operating activities due to shortage of working capital.

The above analysis shows that the proportion of cash fund has decreased, whereas the shares of accounts receivable and inventory have enhanced quite significantly. The most significant change has been occurred in terms of notes to bank, which has increased to 23.50% from 5.14%. To match with the high increase of notes to bank, the net plant, the owners equity has decreased almost by 20%, which is not desirable at all.
It is quite evident from the forecast plan that the company has to decrease its costs and increase its sales volume significantly to repay its bank loans fully. It is only possible if the company give more focus on its working capital and cash flow structure.

Consequence for the company

As discussed above, the main issue of Sengupta Fibres Ltd. is the shortage of liquid fund. In addition to that, the company is also suffering from lower profit margins and expected to maintain the downward trend in the coming year too.
Therefore, Mrs. Sharma should to adopt some strategic plans that can help her to increase the profit margins and the cash fund of the company. The alternative actions, which can solve the issues of the company, are discussed below:-
1) The management should revise its sales projections properly. Then the management will have an overview about how much cash inflow it can generate from its operational activities.

2) The company should improve the rate of working capital circulation. For such actions, it has to make the credit collection period shorter and increase the inventory turnover ratio so that its other current assets will convert into cash faster. Then the company does not have to depend on the short-term debts too much for its operating activities. For the process, the management may provide discount to the customers or may re-structure the credit terms. It can also introduce new marketing strategies, which can increase the sales and rotate the working capital faster.

3) The management should reduce the cash outflows as much as possible to increase the net cash funds. To reduce the cash outflows, the company should reduce its costs and negotiate with its suppliers for further discounts and also decrease the probability of accidental costs with better operational control.

4) The company use to pay dividend quarterly. It can use some part of dividends for repayment of the short-term debts. Sengupta Fibres Ltd. is basically a family business. Therefore, due to lower payment of dividends, the company will not have to face any type of adverse reactions from its shareholders.

The management of Sengupta Fibres Ltd. may consider the four operating proposals for improving its current financial positions. The proposals may create some positive impact for the company, which are discussed below:-
1) Pondicherry Textiles is one of the largest purchasers of the company. Therefore, the company should consider its proposal for increasing the credit terms to 80 days. Thus, the company will be able to earn good amount of sales revenue from the company on quarterly basis.

2) The proposal for reducing the raw-material inventory requirement from 60 days to 30 days will be very effective to lower down carrying cost of the company. But it should be noted that the requirement for raw-material is greatly dependent on the sales volume. Moreover, it will increase the amount of monthly cash outflow also. Hence, before implementing the proposal, the company should evaluate the outcomes of the proposal in terms of sales volume and net cash flows.

3) The proposal for pellets should also be evaluated in terms of sales volume. The new proposal will reduce the inventory of pellets and help to increase the production rate. But unless, the increase in production will cause increase in sales, the proposal will not be effective too much.

4) The proposal from the operation manager regarding the stable workforce and level production can be proved very effective for the company. With the stable workforce, the company will have to incur lesser amount on training. Moreover, it will also increase the efficiency of the workers and increase both the quantity and quality of the production. Level production will reduce the rate of equipment breakdown and thus, it can provide uninterrupted production flow, especially, in the seasonal periods.

In order to bring the company’s credit position to a stable position the bank and various other financial institutions has a crucial role to play. As the business is mainly in a country like India the bank has several instruments to offer to Sengupta Fibres Ltd (Ongena & Schindele, 2016). Some of the low risk investment options for the company in the bank include:

• Provision for higher free cash flow (FCF): Free cash flow or FCF is the amount obtained after subtracting capital expenditures from the operating cash flow. Hence it is the amount of liquid money which the company has always available in the bank at any given time. Sengupta Fibres Ltd. needs to determine the availability of this amount on daily basis as it is required for proper running of the business activities. The company needs to rely on the bookkeeper to keep Mrs. Sharma informed about the availability of free cash. In other to maintain higher provision for free cash flow the company may restrict itself from future investment activities such as technology upgrades, buying of new office furniture, renting of additional warehouse etc (Park & Jang, 2013)

• Maintaining higher Working Capital: The present problems faced by the company are most related to meeting the short term obligations of financing and making payment for clearing of the goods from the warehouse. The company needs to allocate higher proportion of the funds into the working capital of the business. This will lead to having more amounts of liquid funds to meet the short term requirements of the business. This amount is the obtained after subtracting current liabilities from current assets. It can be further observed that at present the company is maintaining an average working capital of Rs. 2656276 in the month of January, Rs. 2585549 for the month of February, Rs. 1838780 for the month of March. It can be further said that the companies average working capital ratio is around 2.19, which is fairly good. There allocation of the liquid funds needs to done in accordance with the usage of funds to meet the daily requirements. If Sengupta fibres is able to increase its liquid funds then the working capital will significantly improve and it will be able to pay off its short term operational costs with ease. (Baños-Caballero et. al., 2014).

• Maintaining higher liquidity ratio- It is important for the company to maintain a higher level of the liquid assets in order meet the daily operational requirements and avoid delay in making payment of the clearing services. This will ensure that the company is able to achieve a greater financial stability and customer retention by making timely delivery of the products. The company needs to make sure that it has adequate amount of the funds available inform of cash and bank balance. It has been observed that the main cause of the present disputer is due to the labor unrest and non compliance of the clearance formalities with the tax inspector. In order to improve the present situation of the company need to make sure that it has adequate amount of the liquid fund available to meet the daily operational requirements (van den End & Kruidhof, 2013).

• Debt/ Equity Ratio- The Company need to further ensure that it is able to maintain a lower amount of the debt equity ratio for the purpose of improving its financial stability. The lower is the amount of the debt equity ratio the better it is for the company to regain the financial position. The company can do so by improving the shareholders value and paying off the credits financed by the bank in time, the various types of the aforementioned investment options will ensure that Sengupta Fibres Ltd. is able to achieve a better financial position and have more source of income to pay off its debts with the bank. This will ensure a higher credit rating and the company will able to take further financial assistance in future (Said, 2013).

• Maintaining higher amount of acid test ratio: The Company needs to make sure that it has adequate amount to use near cash to extinguish to pay off its current liabilities on an immediate basis. The company needs to maintain quick ratio amount more than 1 to ensure that it is fully able to pay off its existing liabilities. The ratio is similar to current ratio except the company needs to exclude the value of inventories. Higher is the acid test ratio, better it is for the company (Yu et al., 2014).

Davies and Merin have discussed in details about the importance of working capital for the business organizations in their research work – “Uncovering Cash and insights from working capital”. The report has incorporated their views and analysis to solve the current financial issues of Sengupta Fibres Ltd. In the report, it has been shown that the companies can earn high revenues and profits by circulating its working capital effectively. The report has described how a proper working capital structure can help the business firm to generate debt financing. Finally, it has suggested some methods through which the management of Sengupta Fibres Ltd. can improve their working capital structure and convince the bank for continuing the credit financing.

Flaws in the forecast plan

The banks use to provide loans on the basis of various financial aspects of a company. It has been noted that most of financial factors leads to a single perspective - the financial strength of the company to repay the loan along with the interest. Banks use to provide loan for generating income so that they can pay interest to the accountholders. Like the profit-seeking institutions, they also want to secure their future income. Therefore, they always check the financial capability of the borrowers (Schwaab et al., 2015).
The financial capability of any firm is used to be measured from its financial statements and its future projection plans. The financial strength of a company can be evaluated by its net income over periods and the amount of assets and liabilities, used to be owned by the company. It should be noted that the financial statements can provide the financial strength of a company but do not ensure about the payment capability of the company (Agha, 2014). Along with the principal amount, the bank also wants that the borrowers should have the capacity to pay the interest on time. It can be ensured by the working capital structure of the company. A company may show high amount of sales and profits in the income statements, but if it cannot convert the credit sales into cash properly, then it cannot repay its other expenses timely. Therefore, the banks use to check the cash flows of the company also to evaluate its working capital (Figlewski et al.,2012).

Working capital is defined as the excess current assets over the current liabilities. In reality, working capital is the amount of liquid fund, required by the organizations to continue its daily operations and meet its operating expenses. It is very necessary for the organizations to circulate its working capital effectively. If the working capital is not rotated properly, then the organizations have to meet its operation expenses from its reserves and retained earnings, which is not desirable for any firm at all (Baños-Caballero et al., 2014).
According to Davies and Merin (2014), it has been observed that effective rotation of the working capital can be very helpful to increase the profit margin of the organization without increasing the sales volume or reducing its expenses. It helps the firm to reduce the amount of debt financing and cost of debts. Moreover, proper rotation of working capital can also reduce many unwanted costs, such as, material damage, spoilage, bad debts etc. (Monto, 2013).

Analysis of the financial projection plan

Adequate amount of working capital can not only help the firms to generate more cash flows and net profits, it can also ensure short term debts from the banks through other means also (Michalski, 2014). The firm can obtain debt financing through the sound working capital structure in the following ways:-
1) The companies with high accounts receivables balance can obtain short-term loan by accounts receivable credit line. The credit lines can be extended with the increase in the receivable amount due to enhanced sales volume (Hoskin et al., 2014).

2) The banks use to provide inventory loans. This type of short-term loan is very much helpful for the producers of fully or partly seasonal products. Generally before the peak season, the producers use invest most of their funds in production and require additional funds in the peak season to continue its operations. They can obtain inventory loan on the basis of the inventories before the peak season to meet the additional requirement of fund at the time of peak season and easily pay the debts at the end of the season by selling the products (Foley et al., 2012).

Apart from that adequate amount of working capital can help the organizations by the following means also:-

Sound working capital cycle maintains the solvency of the firm. Negative working capital may lead the firm to bankruptcy (Baños-Caballero et al.,2012).
By maintaining the working capital structure properly, the firm can be able to encash its credit sales quickly and also get the regular return on short-term investment (Abuzayed, 2012).

By sufficient working capital, the firm use to get regular supply of raw material. Thus, it can maintain uninterrupted production system and deliver the finished products to the customers on time (Vlaović-Begović et al., 2013).

With adequate working capital, the firms can pay its creditors properly and earn cash discounts from them.
The firms, which use to enjoy these advantages by following proper working capital structure, are able to maintain high goodwill in the market. All these factors indicates that the firms have steady revenue generating capacity and also pays the creditors on regular basis (Jagongo & Makori, 2013). Moreover, the firms, with amount of adequate working capital, can pay off its debt in crisis period also. Therefore, the banks use to prefer such firms more providing short-term credits (Lorange & Datson, 2014).

Sengupta Fibres Ltd. has been suffering greatly by the shortage of cash funds. The case study reveals that the company has been earning handsome amount of profits over the years. But still for cash payments, it has to depend on the debt financing. From the analysis of Davies and Merin (2014), it is cleared that the company is totally unable to convert its revenues into liquid cash. Further, the owner of the company use to pay the excess funds as dividends to the shareholders instead of retaining in the business or utilizing it to pay off the debts.
The situation has become worse as the bank has declared that it will not provide any further cash support to the company as the company has failed to repay the debts on time. The bank will provide finance support only if the company can provide proper financial projection plan (Enqvist et al., 2014).

From the above discussion, it can be stated that to satisfy the requirement of the bank, the company should not only exhibit higher profits but also has to show proper working capital structure, which can ensure the bank about the repayment of short-term debts. For that, the company has to improve its working capital structure. The company should look out for a proper solution to develop a proper working capital cycle (Jain et al., 2013).
The working capital cycle along with the factors of working capital are shown in the following chart:-

It should be noted that all the factors are closely related with each other. Therefore, if any one of the factors is not taken care of properly, then the total structure will lose its effectiveness (Uremandu et al., 2012). From the case study, it can be stated that Sengupta Fibres Ltd. should give more importance to the following aspects to improve its better working capital cycle:-

As shown in the chart, inventory or stock is one of the major factors of working capital. For an effective working capital, it is very necessary to maintain exact and proper quantity of raw materials inventory. The company should fix the safety stock level and re-ordering level of raw material (Akoto et al., 2013). The management has to ensure that the levels are maintained properly. Moreover, for finished goods inventory, the level of ordering should be maintain as per the monthly sales projection and it has to be ensured by the warehouses that the finished goods are cleared properly.

Every business firm wishes to sell its product on cash basis. But practically it is not possible due to the trade policies and market trends. Sometimes the firms use to provide credit terms for increasing its sales (Michalski, 2012). The normal credit period of Sengupta Fibres Ltd. is 45 days. Hence, the company should collect 50% of the total sales revenue of a given month within the next month and the balance 50% in the 3rd month. But as per records of Mr.Ashok, the company use to collect 40% of the sales in the next month and 60% on the 3rd month. Therefore, the management should give more focus on the cash collections. It should ensure that all the sales amount of a certain month should be collected within the first 15 days of the 3rd month of sales. Otherwise the funds requirement for the operating activities would be increased. As the aftermath, it may eventually lead to cash crisis (Napompech, 2012).

Cash is the most important asset for any business firm. It is the most liquid form of asset. As a matter of fact, it can be noticed in financial statements of most of the company that the proportion of cash and cash equivalent assets use to be smaller than other assets. But, it is very essential for the regular operational activities. Therefore, the companies should use the cash asset more efficiently. One of the major problem of Sengupta Fibres Ltd. is the shortage of cash. Therefore, the management should prepare the cash budgets properly and tally it with the actual cash flow statement on regular basis (Al-Mwalla, 2012). Moreover, the company has to pay the excise duty at the time of departure of the goods. Being a statutory payment, the excise duty cannot be withhold for longer period unlike other regular payments. Therefore, the company more cash funding than the limit, set by the management. To solve the issue, the company has to lower down the cash outflows related to dividend payments, as it is the only cost, which is under the direct control of the management (Michalski, 2014).

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