lượng của tài sản cố định được ghi trên bảng cân đối kế toán của một công ty có thể chỉ ra mức độ mà một công ty đã tiếp tục thay thế các tài sản hiện có của nó với những cái mới trên cơ sở liên tục. Ví dụ, nếu tỷ lệ khấu hao tích lũy tài sản cố định là khá cao, | Asset Utilization Measurements I 17 ACCUMULATED DEPRECIATION TO FIXED ASSETS RATIO Description Comparing the amount of accumulated depreciation to the gross amount of fixed assets recorded on a company s balance sheet can indicate the extent to which a company has continued to replace its existing assets with new ones on an ongoing basis. For example if the proportion of accumulated depreciation to fixed assets is quite high it is evidence that not too many assets have been added by a company in recent years which may in turn lead one to suspect that there is little cash available for such investments. Formula Divide the total accumulated depreciation by the total amount of fixed assets. A variation on this approach is to run the same calculation for different classes of assets in order to see if there are certain types of assets in which a company does not appear to be making a sufficient level of investment in new assets. The formula is Accumulated depreciation Total fixed assets Example A potential acquirer is reviewing the financial statements of the Bavarian Clock Company. The financial information under review is limited and does not contain a sufficient degree of information regarding cash flows from year to year. Consequently the acquirer is trying to get a general idea of the company s ability to generate cash by reviewing the expenditures it has made for fixed assets. The assumption is that an increase in the ratio of accumulated depreciation to fixed assets over time is an indicator of a shortage in cash. The financial information is compiled in Table . The ratio at the bottom of the table indicates that the company appears to have experienced a sudden drop in its cash flow in the past two years because the amount of accumulated depreciation has skyrocketed in comparison to the fixed asset base indicating that the company has stopped purchasing fixed assets. Cautions This ratio can present an incorrectly unfavorable view of a company s reinvestment .
