Financial Analysis for Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (Shell) is one of the world’s largest corporations with annual revenue of $470 billion for fiscal year 2011. When analyzing a company it is vital to ensure all aspects of the firm’s financial standing are stable, this is essential to guarantee its ability to take upon new major projects, such as the one being proposed at this time and evaluated in this report.

This report intends to evaluate the possibility of Shell undertaking a project that requires a total initial investment of $580 million in fixed assets as wells as operation expenses of $38 million, for a total of $618 million is startup costs.

This report illustrates Shell’s financial standing through, ratio analysis, cash flow analysis, and detailed capital budgeting analysis to help calculate Shell’s capacity to accept the proposed project. The life of the project will be eight years and expected to have a growth rate of 8. 5%.

The Net Present Value of the project is approximately $284 million and is expected to pay for itself in approximately 4.

74 years according to discounted payback calculations (detailed in report). Introduction Royal Dutch Shell plc operates as an oil, gas and energy company that explores for and extracts hydrocarbons worldwide. Royal Dutch Shell also converts natural gas to liquids to provide cleaner-burning fuels; markets and trades natural gas; extracts bitumen from mined oil sands and convert it to synthetic crude oil; and generates electricity from wind energy.

In addition, it converts crude oil into a range of refined products, including gasoline, diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, marine fuel, lubricants, bitumen, sulphur, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG); and produces and sells petrochemicals for industrial use.

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The company holds interests in approximately 30 refineries; 1,500 storage tanks and 150 distribution facilities; and fuels retail network of approximately 43,000 service stations under the Shell brand name. Royal Dutch Shell plc also markets its products under the Shell V-Power and Shell FuelSaver brand names.

In addition, the company offers lubricants for use in passenger cars, trucks, and coaches, as well as for industrial machinery in manufacturing, mining, power generation, agriculture, and construction industries. Royal Dutch Shell plc sells fuels, specialty products, and services to commercial customers; offers fuel for approximately 7,000 aircraft every day at 800 airports in 30 countries; offers liquefied petroleum gas and related services to retail, commercial, and industrial customers for cooking, heating, lighting, and transport applications; provides transport, industrial, and heating fuels; and supplies approximately 11,000 tones of itumen products. Royal Dutch Shell plc is headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and employs roughly 23,000 people worldwide. (Royal Dutch Shell, 2012).

Financial Ratio Analysis The following table illustrates Royal Dutch Shell’s financial ratios analysis and will assist in the understanding of the current and (estimated) future status of the organization. The ratios will allow for a general interpretation of the firm’s strength and ability to take on outside projects.

Across the board Shell has a lower debt ratio than their competitors; the resultant effect on earnings would be less volatile than related companies. The debt ratio is a solvency ratio that examines how much of a company’s assets are made of liabilities. A debt ratio of 20 percent means that 20 percent of the company is liabilities. A high debt ratio can be negative; this indicates the shareholder equity is low and potential solvency issues. A low debt to equity ratio indicates lower risk, because debt holders have less claims on the company’s assets. Overall Royal Dutch Shell is in an excellent Debt Management position.

Net Profit Margin is the net earnings of a company / sales. This profitability ratio compares the percent of net earnings from a company’s sales. Royal Dutch Shell’s Net Profit is on par with other companies in the Oil ; Gas industry, which means it has an equal ability spend assets on business operations when compared to its competitors. Basic earning power shows the raw earning power of a firm’s assets before taxes and other leverages. This will help the firm understand their return on its assets. Return on Assets or ROA, shows the rate of return (after tax) being earned on all of the firm’s assets regardless of financing structure.

It is a measure of how efficiently the company is using all stakeholders’ assets to earn returns. Royal Dutch Shell has a five year average of 8. 42%, which is 1. 73% lower than the industry average, however still in the healthy zone. Return on equity or ROE is used to measures the rate of return on the money invested by common stock owners and retained by the company from previous profitable years and shows how well a company uses investment funds to generate growth. Royal Dutch Shell’s Return on Equity indicates that it is able to reinvest its earnings more efficiently than the majority of its competitors in the Oil ; Gas industry.

A Market Value Ratio Trend Earnings per share (EPS) is the amount of income that “belongs” to each share of common stock. An important tool for investors, EPS is often used in determining the value of a stock. As noted above, Royal Dutch Shell is on average with other firms in its industry. Book value per share has slowly been on a rise over the past 5 years, from $38. 61 in 2007 up to 54. 8 in 2011. Book value is a company’s net asset value; a relatively high book value per share in relation to stock price often occurs when a stock is undervalued and might be an attractive buy.

A Market Value Ratio Trend The price per earnings ratio (PE) is the measure of the share price relative to the annual net income earned by the firm per share. PE ratio shows current investor demand for a company share. A high PE ratio generally indicates increased demand because investors anticipate earnings growth in the future. Royal Dutch Shell has a five year average of 9. 8% PE as compared to the industry average of 7. 86%; Shell is higher by 1. 42%.

The dividend yield is the sum of a company’s annual dividends per share, divided by the current price per share. When investing in companies an investor should look for a stable and high dividend yield; this can insure an investor a secure a relatively stable cash flow. Royal Dutch Shell’s dividend yield is on par with other companies. As indicated by the payout ratio, Royal Dutch Shell’s earnings support the dividend payouts more than others in the same industry group. Cash Flow and Growth Analysis

A Cash Flow Trend Information used and interpreted from the Royal Dutch Shell Investors Handbook illustrates that Royal Dutch Shell decreased the amount spent on operations from 2008 to 2009; this can most likely be due to the economic downturn. Conversely, from 2009 to 2011 there has been a steady increase in cash flows for operations.

A Growth Analysis Trend Capital Structure Estimation When performing the Capital Structure Estimation, the assessor can exam how the combination of equity capital and debt capital that a firm uses to finance its assets can have a positive or negative affect on the firm. The capital structure is how a firm finances its overall operations and growth by using different sources of funds. Royal Dutch Shell’s use of debt and ommon stock (Royal Dutch Shell does not issue preferred stock) impacts the open market and, as a result, the firm’s cost of capital is impacted in both constructive and/or destructive ways.

By examining the Balance Sheet and the numbers in figure 11 you can see that Royal Dutch Shell, based on market value, has a capital structure of 27. 1% debt and 72. 29% equity in the form of common stock totaling a market capitalization of $454 billion. When utilizing the book value, the weighing scale becomes 50. 47% debt and 49. 53% equity with a value of $171 billion. Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) Knowing a firm’s weighted average cost of capital is crucial when considering any new projects. A firm’s WACC is the overall required return on the firm as a whole and, as such, it is often used internally by company directors to determine the economic feasibility of expansionary opportunities and mergers. Generally speaking, a company’s assets are financed by either debt or equity.

WACC is the average of the costs of these sources of financing, each of which is weighted by its respective use in the given situation. The weighted average can show how much interest the company has to pay for every dollar it finances. This section of the report will determine Royal Dutch Shell’s weighted average cost of capital. In determining the firm’s factor cost of common equity, the average of three methods will be utilized; Capital Asset Pricing Modem (CAPM), Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), and bond-yield-plus-risk-premium (BYPRP). Calculating the cost of debt (after tax) is figured by using the corporate tax rate and the cost of debt (Kd) which will be based on Royal Dutch Shell’s bond rating.

The time value of money is represented by the risk-free (rf) rate in the formula and compensates the investors for placing money in investments over a period of time. The other half of the formula represents risk; this is calculated by taking a risk measure (beta) that compares the returns of the asset to the market over a period of time and to the market premium (Rm-rf) or Market risk premium (MRP).

The proposed project requires initial investment of $580 million to construct building and purchase equipment, and $38 million for shipping & installation fee for a total of $618 million is start-up costs. The fixed assets fall in the 7-year MACRS class and has a salvage value of fixed assets at $17 million. It is expected that the new product will sale 2,280,000 units in the first year and has an expected annual growth rate of 8. 5%. The sales price is $275 per unit and the variable cost is $205 per unit in the first year, but they should be adjusted accordingly based on the estimated annualized inflation rate of 2. 3%. The required net operating working capital (NOWC) is 11. 5% of sales.

However, the amount of capital available at any given time for new projects is limited, capital budgeting analysis will help to determine if a project is feasible or not. Capital budgeting analysis can include net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), modified internal rate of return, profitability index (PI), payback period and discounted payback.

The projects Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is 17. 0%, higher than Royal Dutch Shell’s WACC which is 8. 8%, this is an optimistic calculation for accepting the project. Finally, payback addresses the projects liquidity, shorter the payback the higher the liquidly and with a current estimation of 4. 74 years, the project is highly recommended. Sensitivity Analysis The Sensitivity Analysis is a modus operandi used to determine how different values of an independent variable will impact a particular dependent variable under a given set of assumptions. Within specific boundaries, the sensitivity analysis is very useful when attempting to determine the impact the actual outcome of a particular variable will have if it differs from what was previously assumed.

By creating a given set of scenarios as, illustrated in figure 23, the analyst can determine how changes in one variable(s) will impact the target variable. In this particular case the sensitivity analysis will determine how the net present value (NPV) of the proposed project will be affected by the modification of several variables; these variables and the results can be examined in the following figures. The modified variables are sales price, variable costs, units sold, non-variable costs, weighted average cost of capital, corporate tax rate and start-up costs. For the purpose of this analysis the calculations were performed with a 10% and 20% deviation from the base in both a negative and positive trend.

For the proposed project the scenario analysis was conducted assuming a 25% probability for best-case conditions; each of the variables calculated in figure 25 would be 20% better than its base-case value. Conversely, there is a 25% probability of worst-case conditions, with the variables 20% worse than the base; a 50% probability was used for base-case conditions. The IRR and MIRR are greater than the WACC of 8. 28%, at 17. 0% and 13. 1% respectively. It is currently estimated that the project will pay for itself in approximately 4. 74 years according to the discounted payback calculations.

The Net present value of the project is positive and the profitability index for the project is 1. 41 (greater than 1) it is a positive sign for the project selection. Royal Dutch Shell is currently moving in a positive direction with a healthy financial base. Financial analyses have bestowed Shell with an AA bond rating, which underlines the financial strength of the organization. Based on all the information listed above, it is with my professional opinion after the evaluation within this report that Royal Dutch Shell takes on the project; with the current and estimated futures of Shell it can only add value to the corporation.