Financial Analysis Of BHP Billiton Limited And CSR Limited

Debt and Equity Position

BHP Billiton Limited and CSR Limited are two listed entities of ASX. Both are in the mining and materials industry of Australia.

BHP Billiton (BHP) is one of the large multi-national company founded and established in Australia and operates in mining and materials industry. The company was founded way back in 1885 in New South Wales (NSW). The company has extensive operations in all over the world including Indonesia, Netherlands, Brazil, Thailand, China, and US along with the domestic market in Australia. CSR Limited, a listed entity in Australia (ASX), the company’s primary business operation include manufacturing and supplying building products. Annual reports of the two companies shall be evaluated to provide important information about the different financial elements reported by the two companies in their respective financial reports.  

• Both BHP and CSR have reported identical items under owners’ equity with different nomenclatures thus, a brief description about these items would be helpful to evaluate the changes in balances of each of these items over the past few years.

BHP Billiton:

Share capital BHP Billiton Limited: Amount of share capital issued and paid by the shareholders. Only the face value of shares are included in contributed equity of the company.

Share capital of BHP Billiton PLC: This amount is the face value of shares issued by the company as an entity of London Stock Exchange.   

Reserves: Specific reserves have been created out of profit and loss account of the company over the years to meet future contingencies.

Treasury shares: It is the amount of shares brought back by the company over the years.

Retained earnings: Accumulated profits transferred after declaring dividend and providing for all specific reserves.

Issued capital: Amount of face value received from issuing ordinary shares to the shareholders has been stated in the issued capital account.

Reserves: To meet future obligations specific reserves have been created and stated under reserves.

Retained earnings: The Company over the years have earn profits from business. After providing for all reserves and payment of dividend the balance profit has been transferred to retained earnings. Hence, retained earnings show the accumulated profits over the years (Minnis and Sutherland, 2017).

Changes in items:

Changes in items of equity of BHP are enumerated below:

US $ millions	2017	2016	Increase / (decrease)
Share capital BHP Billiton Limited	1,186.00	1,186.00	–
Share capital BHP Billiton PLC	1,057.00	1,057.00	–
Treasury shares	(3.00)	(33.00)	30.00
Reserves	2,400.00	2,538.00	(138.00)
Retained earnings	52,618.00	49,542.00	3,076.00

Note: In analysis m denotes millions.  

Share capital has remained unchanged in 2017 as the company has not issued any additional shares during 2017. Reserves balances have changed as specific reserves have been utilized in 2017 resulting reduction of reserves. Increase in retained earnings is due to profits earned by the company in 2017 and transferred to retained earnings (Brigham et. al. 2016).   

Changes in these items are recorded in the tabular format below for CSR Limited:

$’ millions	2017	2016	Change increase / (decrease)
Issued capital	1,036.80	1,041.10	(4.30)
Reserves	(73.40)	20.40	(93.80)
Retained earnings	191.60	123.20	68.40

Cash Flows from Operating, Investing, and Financing Activities

In 2017 the company has brought back shares with face value of $4.30m hence, the issued capital has decreased by such amount. Decrease in reserves is due to the utilization of specific reserve in 2017 to the extent of net 93.80m. Increase in retained earnings of $68.4m is due to the transfer of net profit after tax and creation reserves to retained earnings in 2017 (Cao, Chychyla and Stewart, 2015).

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Debt and equity position of two companies as on June 30, 2017:

US$ millions	2017
	BHP	CSR
Owners’ equity	57,258.00	1,155.00
Long term debt fund	29,233.00	30.50
Capital gearing ratio (Owners’ equity / Fixed interest bearing fund)	1.96	37.87

In assessing debt to equity position of an entity, capital gearing ratio calculated by dividing the owners’ equity by fixed interest bearing funds of an entity is very useful.  

BHP has used long term borrowings so has CSR. Hence, in case of BHP there the capital gearing ratio is 1.96 times and for CSR it is 37.87 times. Debt and equity position indicates the long term solvency position of an entity. It is always encouraged to have majority portion of total funds as owners’ equity. Thus, a 1.96 capital gearing ratio of BHP indicates that the company has a stable debt and equity position. The use of debt fund is very less for CSR as it has 37.87 capital gearing ratio. It is recommended to the company to use additional funds from long term debt to use the financial and operating leverage. Hence, the debt and equity position of CSR minerals is not suitable for the expansion of the business (Henderson et. al. 2015).

Operating activities:

CSR Limited:

Cash receipts from customers: CSR has reported amount of cash receipts form customers under operating activities cash flows. Amount received from customers are the revenue generated from business.    

Payment to suppliers and employees: In order to run business an organization needs raw materials and employees. Payment to the suppliers are for raw material and employees are paid for their hard work to help the companies to achieve their operational objectives.

Dividend received:CSR Limited has showed amount of dividend received as operating activities as the company considers such investment in equity as operating investment (Patelli, L. and Pedrini, 2015).

Interest received: Interest received from operating investments other than equity has shown under interest received by CSR (Francis et. al. 2015).

Income tax: payment of income tax in cash is part of operating activities. Hence, deducted from operating cash flows to calculate net cash flows from operating activities of CSR.

Changes in Equity Items

BHP has used indirect method to calculate cash flows from operating activities hence, it has adjusted the profit before tax by adjusting non-cash items such as depreciation, amortization; non-operating items such interest income and interest expenditures.  

Both BHP and CSR have reported identical items under investing and financing activities. Brief description about these items are provided below:  

Acquisition of property, plant and equipment, purchase of intangibles, acquisition of business interests in associates and joint ventures are the items included in investing activities of BHP and CSR Limited. Proceeds from disposal of non-current assets, sale of business interests are cash inflows from investing activities of both these companies (Tassadaq and Malik, 2015).      

In financing activities capital raised from issue of shares represent the amount received from ordinary shares of the company. In addition proceeds received from loans and borrowings are inflow of cash from financing activities. Repayments of loans, buy-back of shares and payment of dividends are the main outflow of cash under financing activities (Hoyle, Schaefer and Doupnik, 2015).   

Changes in items of cash flows of BHP is provided in a tabular format below:

US$ millions	2,017.00	2,016.00	2,015.00
Cash Flows From Investing Activities
Investments in property, plant, and equipment	(4,252.00)	(6,946.00)	(11,947.00)
Property, plant, and equipment reductions
exploitation expenses	(968.00)	(765.00)	(816.00)
exploitation expenses included in operating cash flows	612.00	430.00	670.00
Investments in equity	(234.00)	40.00	117.00
Proceeds from sale of assets	648.00	1,047.00	74.00
Proceed from divestment of subsidiaries	186.00	166.00	256.00
Others	(153.00)	(277.00)	144.00
Net cash flow / (used) from investment activities	(4,161.00)	(6,305.00)	(11,502.00)

The net cash used in investing activities in 2017 has reduced with net use of $4,161m. In 2016 the net use of cash in investing activities was $6,305m. The decrease in investment activities is due to reduction in exploitation expenses and increase in proceeds from sale of non-current assets.  

Financing activities of BHP:

US$ millions	2,017.00	2,016.00	2,015.00
Financing activities
Proceeds from issue of interest bearing securities	1,577.00	7,239.00	3,440.00
Proceeds from debt	36.00	156.00	(33.00)
Repayment of interest bearing liabilities	(7,120.00)	(2,788.00)	(4,135.00)
Issue of ordinary shares			9.00
Non-controlling interests	(16.00)		53.00
Shares buy back	(108.00)	(106.00)	(355.00)
Payment of dividend	(2,921.00)	(4,130.00)	(6,498.00)
Payment dividend to non-controlling interests	(581.00)	(87.00)	(554.00)
	(9,133.00)	284.00	(8,073.00)

The huge amount of repayment of loans and borrowings have resulted in use of $9,133m for financing activities in 2017 as compared to cash inflow of $284m in 2016 from similar activities.  

In case of CSR Limited, the changes in cash flow items are enumerated below:

US$’ Millions	2017	2016
Cash Flows From Investing Activities
Investments in property, plant, and equipment	(93.20)	(120.00)
Proceeds from sale of PPE	44.70	71.20
Investments in equity	(3.50)	(19.30)
Business acquisition costs	(3.40)	(12.80)
Loans received / paid	(5.30)	0.10
Net cash flow / (used) from investment activities	(60.70)	(80.80)

Use of net cash in investing activities has reduced for CSR to $60.7m in 2016. A year back the company used $80.8m in net cash on investment activities. The reason for such decrease is low amount of investment in PPE this year, i.e. 2017 (Johnston and Petacchi, 2017).

  Financing activates of CSR:

Proceeds from debt	28.30	(10.40)
Acquisition of shares by CSR	(5.40)	(7.10)
Interest and finance costs	(3.40)	(3.20)
Shares buy back	(4.30)	(1.10)
Payment of dividend	(146.70)	(144.90)
Non-controlling interests transactions	(126.40)
	(257.90)	(166.70)

CSR has used $257.90m of net cash on financing activities in 2017 whereas a year ago in 2016 the company only used $166.7m for financing activities. Investment in non-controlling transactions have resulted in significant rise in use of cash for financing activities (Leuz and Wysocki, 2016).

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Comparative analysis of three broad categories of cash flows of BHP Limited is given in a tabular form:

BHP	2,017.00	2,016.00	Change increase / (Decrease)
Net cash flow / (used) from operating activities	16,804.00	10,625.00	6,179.00
Net cash flow / (used) from investing activities	(4,161.00)	(7,245.00)	3,084.00
Net cash flow / (used) from financing activities	(9,133.00)	284.00	(9,417.00)

Net Cash inflow from operating activities has increased by $6,179m compared to last year. Use of cash in investing activities in 2017 has reduced significantly by $3,084m. The company has used net cash flow of $9,133m from financing activities in comparison of use of  $284m on financing activities in 2016 (Sherman and Young, 2016).  

For CSR Limited, the tabular format showing comparative analysis between the three broad cash activities is provided below:

CSR ($’m)	2,017.00	2,016.00	Change increase / (Decrease)
Net cash flow / (used) from operating activities	264.80	252.20	12.60
Net cash flow / (used) from investing activities	(60.70)	(80.80)	20.10
Net cash flow / (used) from financing activities	(257.90)	(166.70)	(91.20)

CSR Limited has generated a positive cash flow of $264.8m from operating activities in 2017. Thus, the company has increased its cash flow generation by $12.6m from operating activities compared to the use of $252.2m on operating activities in 2016. The use of cash for investing activities have also reduced by $20.10m to $60.7m in 2017. In financing activities the company has used cash flow of $257.9m in 2017 whereas in 2016 it used $166.7m on similar activities (Gordon et. al. 2017).      

• Comparison between two companies of cash flows from three broad categories:

In order to compare the cash flows from different activates between BHP and CSR Limited a table containing the cash flow details from three broad categories of two companies shall be prepared in a table.

	2017	2016
	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)
Net cash flow / (used) from operating activities	16,804.00	264.80	10,625.00	252.20
Net cash flow / (used) from investing activities	(4,161.00)	(60.70)	(7,245.00)	(80.80)
Net cash flow / (used) from financing activities	(9,133.00)	(257.90)	284.00	(166.70)

The above table containing information of cash flows from three broad categories clearly explains that there is contrasting differences between the cash flows of the two companies. The operating cash flow generated by BHP in 2017 is $16,804m whereas CSR has accumulated a net of $264.8m in cash flows from operating activities. In 2016, BHP generated cash flow of $10,625m from operating activities as compared to only $252.2m net positive cash generated by CSR. BHP in 2017 has used $4,161m on investing activities which in case of CSR is only $60.7m. BHP Limited used $9,133m in cash for financing activities in 2017 compared $257.9m used by CSR Limited in the same period (Brown et. al. 2016).         

Other Comprehensive Income Statement Analysis of two companies:  

BHP Limited and CSR have reported similar items in other comprehensive income statements, these are  net exchange differences for translation of foreign operations that have been directly taken to the equities of the company; amount transferred to foreign currency translation reserves; gain or losses on exchange fluctuations; measurement gain or losses on pension plan scheme; gain or losses resulting from adjustments of fair value hedges and income tax on the items reported in other comprehensive income statement (Campbell, 2015).  

• The above items are not of regular day to day items and do not resulted in actual gain or losses to the organization. Hence, companies in this case BHP Limited and CSR Limited have reported such items in a separate statement known as other comprehensive income statement.
• The table below contains the comparative data to analyze the differences in items shown in other comprehensive income statements of the two companies (Black al. 2018).

	2017	2016
	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)
Net valuation (loss) / gain taken to equity	(1.00)	–	2.00	–
Net valuation (loss) / gain transferred to income statement	1.00
gain / (loss) from cash flow hedges taken to equity	351.00	(44.60)	(566.00)	14.10
Gains/ (losses) transferred to income statement	(432.00)	(16.30)	664.00	(0.90)
Changes in cash flow hedges		(0.50)
Exchange fluctuation on translation of foreign operations	(1.00)	(0.50)	(1.00)	(1.90)
Recycling of foreign currency translation reserve	(5.60)
Exchange fluctuation on translation of foreign operations transferred to income statement	–	(10.00)	–
Tax recognition	24.00	18.40	(30.00)	(3.90)
Actuarial gains / (losses) on pension plan	36.00	24.10	(20.00)	20.90
Tax recognition	(26.00)	(7.30)	(17.00)	(6.20)
Net comprehensive Income / (loss)	(49.00)	(31.80)	23.00	21.60

As can be seen that number of items have reported in other comprehensive income statements in 2017 and 2016 by BHP and CSR. In total the loss from other comprehensive income statement of BHP in 2017 is $49m whereas it was a net gain of $23m in 2016. In comparison CSR has recorded $31.8m as net loss from other comprehensive income statement and a net gain of $21.6m in 2016 in other comprehensive income statement (Bratten, Causholli and Khan, 2016).

If the items reported in other comprehensive income statements of BHP and CSR Limited would have been reported in income statements of these companies then the amount of income would have been lowered by $49m in 2017 and higher by $23m in 2016. Thus, the earnings available to the common shareholders of the company would have been reduced by $49m in 2017 and increased by $23m in 2016. Similarly the income available to common shareholders of CSR would have decreased by $31.8m in 2017 and increased by $21.6m in 2016 (Jahmani et. al. 2017).  

• Well though the items reported in other comprehensive income statement are not of ordinary day to day matters and not related to the regular business operations of an organization however, the decision of hedging, foreign exchange strategy are also taken by the management. Thus, the income reported in other comprehensive income statement should be considered while appraising and evaluating the performance of the managers of the company.   

• In 2017 BHP has provided $4,100m as income tax expenses in the income statement. A year back in 2016 the company provided $1,052m as income tax expenses in the income statement. CSR has made a provisions of $61.7m as income tax expenses in 20174 and in 2016 the company recorded an income tax expense of $64.4m (Bradbury, 2016).
• Effective tax rate is calculated by using the amount of income tax expense/ benefits in relation to the amount of profits earned or losses incurred before income tax. Using the above formula the effective tax rates of BHP and CSR Minerals are calculated in the table below:

	2017	2016
	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)
Income tax expense / (Benefits)	4,100.00	61.70	1,052.00	64.40
Profit before income tax	10,322.00	266.80	(7,259.00)	233.70
Effective tax rate (%)	39.72	23.13	(14.49)	27.56

Effective tax rate is higher for BHP with 39.72% in 2017 as compared to 23.13% of CSRfor the corresponding period (Cazier et. al. 2015).  

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BHP Limited has reported $5,788m of deferred tax assets in 2017 and $6,147m in 2016 and has recorded $3,765m in 2017 and $4,324m in 2016 as deferred tax liabilities. CSR on the other hand has reported $201.2m in2017 and $239.3m in 2016 as deferred tax assets. Deferred tax liabilities of $20.9m was disclosed in 2016 and no amount in 2017 (Wang, Butterfield and Campbell, 2016).

The reason for recording deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities are the differences between taxable income and accounting income. Since taxation provisions are different from accounting principles hence, there are number of items of revenue and expenditures that are treated differently for computation of income tax expense. Hence, an entity often needs to record deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities depending on the specific circumstances in each case (Karadag, 2015).  

BHP:

	BHP
	2017	2016	Change: Increase / (Decrease)
Deferred tax assets	5,788.00	6,147.00	(359.00)
Deferred tax liabilities	3,765.00	4,324.00	(559.00)

Reduction in deferred tax assets of BHP is by $359m and in deferred tax liabilities by $559m in 2017 compared to the respective amounts disclosed under these items.

CSR:

	CSR
	2017	2016	Change
Deferred tax assets	201.20	239.30	(38.10)
Deferred tax liabilities	–	20.90	(20.90)

Deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities of CSR has reduced by $38.10m and $20.9m respectively in 2017 from the amount disclosed in 2016 (Graham et. al. 2017).  

• To calculate the cash tax amount of two companies the following adjustments have been made to the income tax expense or benefits of the respective companies:

	2017
	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)
Income tax expense	4,100.00	61.70
Add: Increase in deferred tax assets and decrease in deferred tax liabilities	559.00	20.90
	4,659.00	82.60
Less: Decrease in deferred tax assets and increase I deferred tax liabilities	359.00	38.10
	4,300.00	44.50
Less: Increase in current tax payable and decrease in current tax assets	–
BHP: (2119- 451)	1,668.00
BHP:(567-195)	372.00
	2,260.00
Add: Decrease in current tax payable
CSR (38.1 -10.3)	27.80
Cash tax amount	2,260.00	72.30

Cash tax amount of BHP is $2,260m in 2017 and $72.30m for CSR in the same period.

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Cash tax rates of two companies are calculated here by taking cash tax amount and profit before income tax of the two companies.

	2017
	BHP ($’m)	CSR ($’m)
Cash tax amount	2,260.00	72.30
Profit before income tax	10,322.00	(7,259.00)
Cash tax rate (%)	21.89	(1.00)

As can be seen cash tax rate is higher for BHP Limited with 21.89% as opposed to (1.00%) rate of cash tax for CSR

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The main reason that cash tax rate is different from book rate is because book tax rate is calculated by using income tax expense whereas cash tax rate is calculated using cash tax amount which is calculated by adjusting the income tax expenses as per the books of accounts of an organization with increases and decrease in deferred tax assets, deferred tax liabilities, current tax assets and current tax liabilities (Wang, Butterfield and Campbell, 2016).

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