Transactions services - Ernst & Young - United States

Proceed with cautious optimism. Adjust swiftly to the new environment. Manage your capital aggressively and strategically. These insights are a playbook for survival and growth in the uncertain months ahead.  In the January issue of Capital matters, the four disciplines of the Capital agenda (preserving, raising, optimizing and investing) are explored.

Valuing businesses and their underlying assets is more challenging today than it has ever been. Our latest study of over 170 users of financial reports reveals that impairments reported during the last two years were lower than expected. Read more in Meeting today’s financial challenges: Impairment reporting: improving stakeholder confidence.

Rigorous and disciplined restructuring tactics have strengthened the balance sheets of many retailers in the past two years, allowing them to survive - sometimes even thrive - in this recession. Some cash-generating retailers are building war chests that will likely be used for small, targeted strategic acquisitions.  Read about the retail transaction market in the InterChange alert: Retail: more consolidation to come (pdf, 155.9kb).

Resetting Order to Cash is one of the most complex and demanding challenges within any restructuring, divestiture or similar corporate transaction. There is no better way to derail a restructuring or carve out than by leaving the order to cash (OTC) cycle to chance. Read about the essential steps for an effective Order to Cash process in the InterChange alert (pdf, 103.7kb) : Order to cash: key to a business restart.

Uncertainty is the only certainty in today’s market. In our new study, Why capital matters, we surveyed 490 senior executives from 32 countries, and show that it’s how you manage your capital agenda today that will define your competitive position tomorrow.

In the current market, should a potential seller hold or fold? For real estate companies, one of the biggest challenges is deciding whether to hang on to a money-losing commercial property or to sell it at a deeply discounted price. The decision is risky, nerve-wracking and complex. Learn what you need to do to overcome the current real estate transaction paralysis in this edition of InterChange alert (pdf, 111.4kb).

Any business model, no matter how good, will some day need to be tweaked, revised or scrapped.  The October issue (pdf, 521K) of InterChange  focuses on strategies for reshaping your business including how entrepreneurs are using innovation to capitalize on opportunity, how waiting on the deal sidelines can be costly and how some companies are looking to India for deals.

Despite an increasing focus on active cash management by many companies,our annual working capital report for 2009 found that up to US$1 trillion of liquidity may still be tied up in working capital in 2,000 of the largest companies headquartered in the US and Europe. (Read the press release)