1 EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY FBL5030 FUNDAMENTALS OF VALUE CREATION IN BUSINESS Semester 182 ASSIGNMENT - ACCOUNTING Requirements 1. The following is a list of companies from the latest ASX. These...

EDITH COWEN UNIVERSITY
Trend Analysis: Sonic Healthcare Limited
ASX: SHL
Class of : XYZ
Submitted by: XYZ
Executive Summary
Sonic Healthcare Ltd. (Ticker: SML) is a publicly listed, Australian healthcare services provider and one of the largest player, globally, engaged in providing specialized-in diagnostic, pathology and radiology services across globe. The cu
ent market capitalization of the company stood $10,744 million at cu
ent market price of $25.29.
1.2 Introduction
Listed in the year 1987 on Australian Securities exchange, the Sonic Healthcare Ltd (refe
ed to as SHL thereafter) has grown leaps and bounds and has truly transformed itself in globally accepted and recognizable medical diagnostic provider with a reputation of being committed to providing diagnostic and pathology services of unmatched quality. Having its head quarters at Macquarie park, New south Wales, The company is market leader in Australia.
Cu
ently, with presence in more than 8 countries such as USA, Germany, United Kingdom,
New Zealand, Switzerland and Belgium to a few, the SHL had a very humble beginning even before it got publicly listed. The company first diagnostic service was Douglass Laboratories, based out somewhere in northern subu
s of Sydney. SHL today is considered to be amongst top 50 companies in Australia, in term of market capitalization as well as
and power. In the decade gone by, the companies have expanded its footprints globally, with total revenue for financial year ended June, 2018 being $ 5541 million.
The company has grown organically and as well as in-organically through multitude of small acquisitions in Austria as well as other geographies, where it foresee possibilities or had pressence. Some of the recent acquisitions made by SHL are German Staber Laboratory group (comprising 17 laboratories, including 3 hubs), headquartered at Munich, West Pacific Medical Laboratory, based in Los Angeles, California. Swiss medical laboratory group, Medisupport S.A. ,KLD Laboratory (Klinisch Laboratorium Declerck) in Ardooie, Belgium, Medical Laboratory Bremen, which comprises of two laboratories in Bremen and Celle in th North -West of Germany..
1.2.1 Business Model and Target Market
The main drivers for Sonic Healthcare Ltd value creation over the years has been its
Dedication and commitment to providing Medicare leadership and diagnostics services of
Unparallel quality, with focus on long term relationship building with its customers, both,
Individual physicians as well as hospitals are adhering to best practices and ethical ownership of the medical profession. Cu
ently pathology business in downturn the group has managed to establish itself and scaled up globally. This fast growth and the impeccable services provided by the group across geographies can gauged by the fact the company in the era IT revolution, still is considered as a growth company by analysts, delivering excellent return to its shareholders on consistence basis. This fast growth can also be attributed the open culture within the organization, which facilitates dissent, communication and feedbacks. Company's MD, CEO and Executive director Colin Stephen Goldschmidt believes in value creation through catering to the needs of the all the stakeholders, be it customers, stakeholders or staff, with emphasis on continuous training and development and delegation of responsibility and accountability. The company delivers quality services to more than 100 million customers annually with its dedicated team of 33000 employees globally. This includes more 200 radiologists, 3000 specialist pathologist and general practitioners, etc. In this report, we would try to analyse and figure out the key trends in terms of the past financials or overall performance of Sonic Healthcare Ltd.
1.3 Financials
To begin with, the SHL is one of the
ightest stories in the Medicare diagnostic and pathology industry. If we look at the pace at which it has grown since 2000 is remarkable. The company has grown at a decent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) being 10.5 percent in terms of its share price.
The industry is destined to witness decent growth of 7 to 8 percent in the years to up to 2025-30, as the awareness about good health and increased importance of early and regular diagnostic is detrimental in keeping up with good health in today hectic life. Further, more exhaustive research and advancements in clinical research sector will add to this steady growth. To add to this, the geographically North America cu
ently lead this market space, but Asia Pacific is set overtake North America in terms of annual growth with projected growth being over 8 percent over the next couple of years.
Given the way the company has performed in recent past, it has good change of eating into this geographical market place yet to be explored and as the per capita income and lifestyle changes gets a upbeat.
We are going to dwell a little deeper into the financials of the SHL and have a look at its past trends and the financial performance. For this, we are going to look at some of the key ratios and their movements over last 5 financial years. Starting with some profitability ratios and having a look at them, we will move towards some of the liquidity ratios as well as solvency ratios.
Ratio analysis and there trends over the past years helps various stakeholders both within and outside the firms, comprising but not limited to, are management, investors, financials institutions and suppliers, etc to look at the strength and weakness operational efficiency and Performance of business
1.4 Profitability Ratios
Profitability ratios are financials tools to evaluate a firm ability to generate earnings or income relative to revenue or sales. The ratios generally are expressed as percentage return (margins%) generated on every dollar of sales. These metrics of profitability is one of the most sought after ratios by shareholders and sustainability of business is largely driven by these.
Operating Profit Margin (EBIT) :
Operating profit margin is a measure of return generated by business from ordinary activities or core activities before payment of income tax and and other non-operating income/(expense). Return on every dollar of sales post deduction of all direct and indirect cost related to operational activities.
Given above are year-on-year growth and EBIT margin of Sonic Healthcare Ltd for last 5 years. Sales of the company has grown considerably well over the last 4 year given the cu
ent market scenario, with growth averaging 9.3% on per year basis, with peak of 19.3 % growth in the year FY-2019. Given the sales growth the EBIT has improved too with per year growth averaging 6 %. Margins have remained steady revolving around 12% to 14% over the past 5 years, despite sale being negative in the FY-2017. This suggests shows us the commitment of the management to maintain cost of operations and its ability to maintain margins at a consistent levels.
Net Profit Margin: Net profit margin shows the relationship between sales
evenue and return generated by the business. It is defined as Firm's ability to translate each dollar of sales into earnings for shareholders.
In line with the operating profit margin the company has been able to maintain its net profit margin too, with an average of 9.1 over the past 5 years period. This suggests that the company has been consistent in managing its cost and this can also be attributed to fact that given the nature of diagnostic business involving less fixed cost, with one time sunk cost being one time investment in lab and other infrastructure. We can see here, that in spite of negative sales or revenue growth in FY-15 and 17, the SHLwas able to maintain decent margins and robust margin over the years.
Return on Assets:
This ratio measures the ability of the business to generate return of its deployed asset. It shows that how efficiently the business is able to make profits given the per dollar of assets which the business have at its disposal.
For the FY-2018, the average ROA for the industry was...