Financial Management For Syndicated Metals Ltd.

Discuss about the Financial Management for Syndicated Metals Ltd.

The chosen company- Syndicated Metals Limited, is a public limited company listed on the Australian stock Exchange. The company is engaged in exploration, discovery, and acquisition of copper and gold and listed in 2007. The company did business and expansion in all possible ways. It entered into partnerships with already existing companies and benefitted the synergy. The company has a CEO. Ideally, in companies with CFOs, they report to the CEOs, but there can be only one person acting as both CFO and CEO.

Large business operates with the help of CFOs. They look after the financial strategy and business health, and they carefully tame the department of finance. CFOs are very progressive with their thoughts and they help businesses to progress through all the obstacles and difficulties. As they contain a strong knowledge of finance, they  enables the senior management to have a strong grasp of the real-time decisions. This ensure that the business do not suffer in the long run.

The duties contain financial planning, reporting and evaluation, strategy that is based for the long term perspective and short-term, investments, hedging, mergers and acquisitions, cash management, auditing and accounting. Their functions are crucial to not only success of the finances of the company but their decisions can influence the very existence and survival of the company as well (Brigham & Daves, 2012).

Syndicate Metals Limited does not employ a CFO. The managing director takes up all the responsibilities of that of a CFO as well as a CEO. Mr. Andrew Monckton is the Managing Director of the company. He takes up all the managerial as well as steward roles for the company. Apart from him, the board also consists of Peter Langworthy as the Non-executive Chairman of the company, David Morgan and Robert Cooper as the Non-executive directors of the company (Syndicated Metal Ltd, 2015).

The major functions of a CFO include:

The role of a CFO is difficult to express. The duties are subjective. He is responsible for the preparation and projection of the financial statements of a company. The main duty of the CFO is to present and report the financial information. The financial statements are of great help as it enables the company to provide relevant and useful information to the stakeholders. It is hence, imperative that accurate information is provided by the CFO because a vast planning rests on it. There are a lot of people involved, and a lot of information is required to be reported and used. It is hence important that these information are handled properly and reported without any biased.

Managing Controls functions

The Managing Director of Syndicate Metal Limited is also required to prepare, present and furnish, all relevant financial information of the company, which is to his knowledge true and valid. The company is a listed company. It has to report its finances to the Australian stock exchange quarterly. In addition, these interim quarterly reports are a base for determining its share prices on the Australian stock exchange (Syndicated Metal Ltd, 2015). It is very important that the numbers be furnished with integrity and care because it shall affect the fundamentals of the company in a huge way.

The CFO is a treasurer to the company. He manages the money of the company. His decisions on investments and managing finances depend on what and how the expansion done. He is the trustee to the company funds. His financial vision is incorporate as the financing and investing activities of the business. More than a short term, his plans directed to benefit the company in the long-term. He thinks at a macro level and plans made with a broader perspective. The CFO decides the manner in which the funds of the company are invested considering the exposure to risk and generating returns. Moreover, the CFO of the capital structure of the company is evaluated by the CFO, determining an optimum combination of debt, equity and internal financing. The CFO is supposed to take decisions on utilisation of company funds where to invest, when to invest, how much to invest and ways of investments are his four most crucial questions that come on his way.
The managing director of Syndicate Metals Limited is required to perform the above-mentioned duties about the company’s finances. The company is engaged in mining copper and gold. Acquisition and exploration of such expensive metals is more serious business than it sounds. The company engages itself in a lot of mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and joint ventures, and other forms of synergies. Selection of business collaborates and associates the profit and cost sharing ratios and the amount of money to be involved all fall under the decision-making portfolio of the managing director – Andrew Munckton. These decisions are crucial because once a project is undertaken al costs incurred in anticipation of profit. One wrong decision can hurt the fundamentals of the company largely. The managing director leads the path to the company’s success. All financials of the company need reporting to the Australian Stock Exchange. Their public documents are review strictly and serve purpose to numerous stakeholders. Hence, all the decisions before being executed needs through attention, a lot of pondering and technical weighing.

A treasurer to the company

The role of a CFO is not limited to the past and present financial condition of the company, the fiscal future even depends on him. He must be well aware of all the risks associated. He must be able to identify and report the areas of efficiency and deficiency of a company. He needs to be versed acutely with the ways in which the company can capitalise on its efficiencies and discount on its deficiencies. This aspect of a CFO’s duties contains economic forecasting and financial modelling. The CFO must be capable of predicting based on multiple, probable economic scenarios and select the best course of action in order to grant the company financial success with sustainable growth.

The managing director of Syndicate Metals Limited should hence be a visionary when it comes to the company’s economy. He should be capable enough of understanding all crucial fortes of the company and device ways of encasing upon the same. He should not forget that his decisions and fair play could affect enumerable people in numerous ways.

A CFO of a company is a scorekeeper. He uses tools like the balanced scorecard, dashboards, analytical ratios, and ratio evaluation to communicate the projected and real situation of the company. He monitors the cash flow positions throughout the company, understands the sources and application of money, and maintains integrity of funds and other valuables of the company. He has the power to establish policies and ways for credit and collection, purchases and sales and all such financial obligations (Graham & Smart, 2012). He understands the company’s legal contract and statuary obligations. He knows all the hidden liabilities and expectations from loan covenants.

The managing director of Syndicate Metals Limited should therefore be very careful about his decisions. The shareholders expect value creation and want their money to multiply. The shareholders invest money with this intention only. They want returns. In addition, the fulfilment of expectations of shareholders is the duty of the managing director.

Apart from the above mentioned duties that cover a major chunk of the CFO’s functions there are some more functions associated with the CFO. He acts as a supervisor of the accounting and finance functions. He supports the accounts and financial function by framing policies and procedures. He also maintains the financial relationships. He maintains communications with investment bankers, financial analyst, and shareholders (Libby et. al, 2011). The CFO coordinates the long-term plans of the company with all the short-term plans. Maintaining shareholders relationships, keeping control records, maintenance of proper financial records and its circulation, all these are the concerns of the CFO. Apart from this he should also monitor the operational aspects.

Economic Strategies and Forecasting

A CFO needs to be updated about all the laws and regulations concerning the company. Any change in the regulations and any update on law and its impact should be known by him. He should be well educated about any variances from the plan of action and such corrective action is taken which minimize the impact of the variances. His success shall depend on the manner the company performs in the long run and the manner of evaluation. In short, the roles and duties of CFO are multi facetted (Choi & Meek, 2011). He should have full knowledge of the legal aspects concerning the company. He should be well versed of accounting and financial knowledge and should be aware of the economics concerning the company.

The efficient market hypothesis opines that assets prices are base on information that is available in the market hence; it is not possible to go ahead of the market returns. Professor Eugene Fama developed the efficient market hypothesis. The professor contended that the stocks are projected at their fair value. He also held that the investors could not purchase undervalued shares or sell the overvalued ones. Hence, in no way the selection of stock can beat the market. He propagated that the only way to earn higher return is by purchasing riskier investments. However, economists on grounds of high level of uncertainty about future condemned this hypothesis (Ball, 1995).

Pension Fund Managers are responsible to ensure that pension schemes operate effectively and sustainably. A pension fund is a large pool of money that is paid by companies and individuals so to be accumulate over many years so that the benefits of the funds are reaped during the time of retirement. The pension fund managers are mostly involved in developing pension’s policies and schemes that are beneficial for both the fund as well as the individuals. He also provides advice to the company (Merchant, 2012). He also supervises the overall administration of pension’s schemes. Computation of performance and value of funds, providing updates to trustees, providing updates to scheme members, being an adviser to the company are few of the of a pension fund manager (Melville, 2013).

Where on one hand technical analysis lays focus on the historical data and trends to predict market prices, efficient market hypothesis believes that post results cannot be used to outperform the market (Christensen, 2011). Therefore, it discounts the usage of technical analysis as a tool to generate market investment returns. Efficient Market hypothesis in relation to the fundamental analysis, states that the security prices projects all the necessary market information (Fama, 1998). Hence, fundamental analysis as a tool cannot be use to generate abnormal returns on security prices.

Here, a definition of work of a fund manager is crucial. The fund management begins with an investment policy statement. For a given efficient market hypothesis, the fund management focus should not be in receiving average returns for investors. The focus should be on the theory that an average return will not be achievable. In addition, devise ways to achieve the same. A pension fund manager’s focus should be on finding ways to outperform a particular threshold related to a particular investment idea (Kalpan, 2005).

Here an assumption related to an investor is that no investor can reap abnormal profit. His focus is hence on devising ways to minimise costs. To attain the market rate of return, a diversification of portfolios is needed that is the job of the pension fund manage (Tanous , 1997). Hence, the job of a pension fund manager is far more crucial than it sounds. The role revolves around deciding on composition of portfolios, weighting of investments, reducing costs, increasing returns, and taking crucial decision upon the benefits and issues of the efficient Market hypothesis (Deegan, 2011). Hence, the job of a pension fund manager is not as simple as asking for a pin.

References

Ball, R 1995, ‘The Theory of Stock Market Efficiency: Accomplishments and Limitations’,  Journal of Corporate Finance, vol. 8, pp. 4-18

Brigham, E. & Daves, P 2012,  Intermediate Financial Management , USA: Cengage Learning.

Choi, R.D. & Meek, G.K 2011, International accounting,  Pearson .

Christensen, J 2011, ‘Good analytical research’, European Accounting Review, vol. 20, no. 1,  pp. 41-51

Deegan, C. M 2011, In Financial accounting theory, North Ryde, N.S.W: McGraw-Hill.

Fama, E.F 1998, ‘Market Efficiency, Long-term Returns, and Behavioral Finance’, Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 49, pp. 283-306

Graham, J. & Smart, S 2012, Introduction to corporate finance, Australia: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Kalpan , S.N & Schoar, A 2005, ‘Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence, and Capital Flows’,  Journal of Finance vol. 60, pp. 1795â€Â1823.

Libby, R., Libby, P. & Short, D 2011, Financial accounting, New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Melville, A 2013, International Financial Reporting – A Practical Guide, 4th edition, Pearson, Education Limited, UK

Merchant, K. A 2012, ‘Making Management Accounting Research More Useful’, Pacific Accounting  Review, vol. 24, no.3, pp. 1-34.

Syndicated Metal Ltd 2015, Syndicated Metal Ltd Annual report 2015, viewed 9 September 2016, https://www.syndicatedmetals.com.au/reports/SMDAnnualReport2015FINAL.pdf Tanous, P 1997, Investment Gurus, New York Institute of Finance, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.1997.