【案例分享】财务报表分析：美国西南航空和达美航空的对比
专栏【悉商学术】
题目：Financial Statement Analysis——Southwest Airline and Delta Airline
作者：柴玉平、陈嘉吟、王文静、丁牧星
指导教师：阎蓓蓓
本案例是上海大学2017年度高水平大学示范课程
“财务报表分析（财务计价与策略）”的阶段性成果
摘要：
In this report, we would like to analyze the operating performance of two U.S. airlines, Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines, and choose one airline to invest. This report is mainly divided into six parts. Firstly, we will introduce the business environment of the U.S. airline industry using the PESTLE and Porter’s Five Forces, including the profitability of the U.S. airline industry and the influence power of the two selected airlines. Then we will identify the major differences between the accounting policies taken by the two airlines and the impact on the financial performance. Besides, we use the ratios to compare the profitability and the risks of the two airlines, as well as the operating, financing and investing cash flows. Finally, based on the former information, we will make the investment selection of the airline.
本案例选择美国的两家著名航空公司，即达美航空和西南航空进行对比分析，在行业分析的基础上，从财务的角度比较两家公司的财务状况、经营成果、现金流量以及经营风险，并在此基础上做出了相应的投资决策。
正 文
Profitability Analysis
Comparative Ratios of Return on Assets and Return on Common Equity
Comparative Ratios of Pretax Operating Profit Margin and Net Profit Margin
Southwest indeed has a longer history and more experience and efforts on lean management and high efficiency as it is known as the origin of budget airline business in the United States, therefore the illustrations above obviously present Southwest’s higher operating profit margins overall these years.
Capital Structure and Solvency
Total debt to equity and Long-term debt to equity
The capital structure of Southwest seemed with a low financial leverage. In the contrary, Delta Air Lines, Inc. had high debt-to-equity ratio, but the number was decreasing significantly during the period of 2014 to 2016, owing to its strategic practices of debt management.
Cash flow analysis
Major Sources of Cash Flow for
Southwest & Delta (2011-2016)
For the perspective of their sources of cash flow: these two company both had obvious increasing proportion of operating cash flow during these six years, While Delta is more self-sufficient, and has a powerful cash flow ability.
Conclusion
In the short term, Southwest is the better choice to invest in. We can see that Southwest grew quickly in recent years with higher profit margin and return on assets. The operating cash flow has increased steadily and performed quite high liquidity. In addition, the leverage of Southwest is lower than Delta, which means Southwest’s profit mainly comes from its operating activities. However, Southwest’s liabilities increased suddenly due to its expansion on new airlines and aircraft introduction, which rises up its pressure on paying the debt in the future. Therefore, investors are more likely to benefit from short-term investments in Southwest.
In the long run, we recommend not investing in either of Delta and Southwest. According to our analysis, these two companies both have high risks in their operations. The fluctuations on Delta’s profitability are more intense than that of Southwest. In addition, if investors hold the share of Delta for a long time, they may be faced with risks of Delta’s bankrupt due to its weak ability of solvency. As for Southwest, although it performs great profits and turnovers in short run and stronger ability of long-term solvency, there are some underlying problems in the future. Southwest is going to expand their operations into setting more international flights, and the company does not have so much experience to manage in a large scale that supports them to operate successfully in the future. In addition, we argue that the Southwest’s stock is over inflated. Therefore, it is risky to invest in either Delta or Southwest. In this situation, more information about the CEO’s management style, changes in top executives, employee structure, corporate culture, internal management mechanism, the influence of their M&A companies on Delta and Southwest and their CSR (Corporation Social Responsibility) reports may be needed. We believe that these factors will help us to analyze more about their decision-making ability, insights into the future global market, and their sense of sustainable development.
供稿：上大悉尼工商学院财会系
版式设计：悉商官媒团队 王鑫林
责任编辑：刘小卓
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