Detta arbete är skrivet för inköpsavdelningen på enheten PGI4, representerat på Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery i Finspång (SIT), med målet att reducera kostnader genom ett förbättrat arbete med Cash Management. Då inköpt material utgör en så pass stor del av värdet på slutprodukten, nära 60 procent, inses genast vilket stort inflytande inköpsfunktionen har på företagets totala kostnader. Även om Cash Management ägnas störst fokus hos företag med likviditetsproblem, finns det mycket att vinna genom att arbeta aktivt med konceptet också i goda tider. Därmed är syftet med arbetet att; ”analysera möjligheterna för inköpsavdelningen på Siemens PGI4 att utnyttja Cash Management för att reducera de totala kostnaderna”. Längs arbetets gång har en totalkostnadsmodell tagits fram för att tydliggöra kostnaderna relaterade till inköp, och därefter har områden specifikt intressanta ur ett Cash Management-perspektiv identifierats. Utgående från dessa områden har undersökts hur dagens verksamhet ser ut på SIT samt hur andra företag hanterar liknande aktiviteter. På så vis har lösningarna tagits fram angående vad inköp på SIT bör arbeta annorlunda med, samt hur de kan nå förbättringar. Genom tydligare riktlinjer för standardkontrakt, ekonomistyrning och villkor för transporter och prognostisering kan arbetssätt inom inköp förbättras. Ett utnyttjande av kassarabatter kan ge kostnadsbesparingar motsvarande 1% av köpesumman. Rekommendationer kopplade till orderprocessen och fakturering syftar till att undvika de årliga kostnaderna på 2,4 miljoner SEK och 300 000 SEK för tidiga leveranser respektive räntefakturor. Ett utnyttjande av inköparnas kompetens inom lagerstyrning, kan resultera i sänkningar av lagernivåer genom att styra lager per leverantör.

<p>Background: Liquidity and the management of liquidity are of great importance for companies. Cash management is not a new term, but the need for it has increased recently, for one thing because of the internationalisation and growing harmonisation between the countries in Europe. Netting is a cash management technique, where receivables and liabilities are netted. This technique can be used to release capital and increase the company’s cash flow by reducing the number of transactions in the internal payment system. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study and describe the idea of netting, and to examine how netting can be used as a cash management tool. </p><p>Method: The study is based on literature as well as personal interviews with co- workers at the case company. </p><p>Result: Netting leads to a reduction in internal payments and hence a reduction of the transaction volume. Some conditions must however be fulfilled in order to make the implementation of this technique profitable. Among other things, the company’s internal transactions must be of considerable proportions.</p>

Univ., Diss.--Louvain-la-Neuve, 2006.

M. Tech. Business Administration / Working capital management is an extremely important area of financial management as current assets normally represent more than half of the total assets of a business. Literature has shown that efficient management of working capital will lead to more profitability and creating more market value. This study sought to ascertain the impact of the working capital management on firm profitability in the retail sector of the South African Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies.

The first essay examines cross-sectional differences between money market mutual funds (MMMFs), in the context of the sponsoring fund family. While extant studies have shown that fund family characteristics impact the management of open-end equity mutual funds, results of this study’s analysis find that fund family characteristics also affect the management of MMMF assets, contributing to differences in the maturity of the fund’s holdings, expenses, and realized returns. I find that an MMMF is not simply a transitional account with a short-term low-risk investment objective, but rather, a critical role player within the fund family. Differences in maturity, yield, and expenses in MMMFs can be explained by family-specific characteristics, including diversification and cash management strategies at the family level. The second essay examines implications of substitutability of two similar financial assets: conventional index mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). I seek to explain the coexistence of these fund types, since both offer a claim on the same underlying index return process, but have different organizational structures. This study compares conventional open-end index funds with matched ETFs on various underlying indexes. Aggregate flows are used to detect substitution and clientele effects. I show that conventional funds and ETFs are substitutes, while ETFs have smaller tracking errors and lower fund expenses. However, I find that these fund types are not perfect substitutes, and their coexistence can be explained by a clientele effect that segregates them into different market niches.

[Truncated thesis] This thesis investigates the relevance of Jensen’s (1986) free cash flow theory to the market for corporate control in Australia. Jensen posits that firms generating cash in excess of that required to fund positive NPV projects face greater agency problems as the free cash flow exacerbates the conflict of interest between shareholders and managers. One implication from Jensen’s free cash flow theory is that firms with high levels of free cash flow are more likely to initiate takeovers that are value-decreasing. There are two practical issues in testing Jensen’s theory; first, constructing an appropriate proxy for free cash flow and secondly, identifying firms with free cash flow. These issues are addressed directly in the first of the two essays that comprise this thesis. The first essay develops and assesses the merits of four operational measures for free cash. One of them is a stock measure while the others are flow measures. The stock measure is included because previous studies have mostly used the stock measure of cash when identifying firms rich in free cash (henceforth, cash rich firms), despite that Jensen (1986) has made explicit reference to free cash flow. We test the validity of this approach by investigating whether stock measures of free cash coincide with flow measures. Our results reveal that the stock and flow measures of free cash give rise to quite different lists of cash rich firms. This is an important empirical contribution of the thesis. Given the lack of definitive criteria for deciding which operational measure of free cash flow is most appropriate, we identify multiple sets of free cash flow firms based on the different operational measures developed. For each operational definition, two methods are used to identify cash rich firms. The first method defines a firm as cash rich if its cash variable ranks in the tenth percentile. The second method defines firms as cash rich if their cash variable value is greater than one and a half standard deviations of the value predicted by a model.

Thesis (D. Comm.(Economic and management sciences))-University of Pretoria, 2004. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2006.

Abstract Driven by fast evolution in the money market during the past two decades, financial and technological innovations, increasing competition, and internationalizing of businesses, cash and treasury management has become an increasingly important function in most firms. It is reasonable to expect that the role of financial transactions in the cash management process in adding to firm value has increased its importance and changed the cash management behavior of firms. The main purpose of this study is to investigate this potential behavioral change in cash management by examining the cash management practices behind the models explaining the cash management behavior and to test the stability of some of these models. It is hypothesized that the environmental changes have been remarkable enough to change the cash management behavior, which can be seen as a structural change in the cash management function. The factors assumed to explain this phenomenon may concern organizational and technological arrangements in cash management, likewise professional skills in the area of financial transactions and incentives for these especially created by emerging money markets. The examination was conducted using the survey method to map out the best cash management practices followed by Finnish listed manufacturing and service companies and by testing the stability of both static and dynamic models explaining cash management behavior. The empirical part of the study is based on three questionnaires in three separate years, namely 1988, 1994, and 2000, and the empirical estimation of the selected cash management models using financial statement data for the years 1972 to 2001. The study concludes that during the research period firms have achieved a significant technological progress (improving systems and methods) and significant behavioral changes (increasing professionalism) concerning cash management practices, referring to opportunities for more effective cash management operations. The stability tests of cash management models indicated that a structural change in cash management behavior occurred after the deregulation years in the money market. These results were consistent with the surveys referring the development in the efficiency of the firms' cash management.

The objective and main aim of this Master´s Thesis is to analyze the working capital and its management in the company Siemens, s.r.o. as a member of concern Siemens and eventually to propose the appropriate arrangements to improve the procedures and reduce the shortcomings detected. Financial statements and annual reports are to be subject to horizontal and vertical analyses, as well as financial ratios. Furthermore, each separate component within the working capital will be reviewed; receivables, inventories, cash and current liabilities. In conclusion, the results of analyses will be explicated a possible influence on company´s or concern´s performance revealed.