Business Focus vs Diversification: Impact on Cash Conversion Cycle

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Urmia, Urmia, Iran.

10.22103/jak.2023.21911.3920

Abstract

Objective: The life and continuity of a business unit significantly depend on its cash flow management. A business unit may have considerable liquidity when it is making a loss, and on the other hand, it may face a lack of liquidity while making a profit. Therefore, if a company is free of liquidity, it is deteriorating; even if the business unit does not make a profit, it does not have the necessary health to continue life and survive in a competitive environment. Correct corporate management includes working capital management, which is interpreted as a powerful tool behind the performance of a business unit and constitutes the most basic function. It is essential to acknowledge that working capital is necessary for any organization because it maintains the organization's liquidity level, increases the chances of its survival in highly competitive environments, and ensures the business's solvency. Recently, some challenges have plagued business units in trying to create a proper balance between surplus and shortage of working capital. The cash conversion cycle is a more useful and dynamic way to assess a company's liquidity because it measures liquidity from a company's perspective as a going concern. The cash conversion cycle measures the time between the cash outflows for inventory purchases, employee costs, and the cash inflows from sales revenue. In the meantime, the studies indicate that American companies' cash assets have been growing over time. The growth in cash holdings is equally impressive. This is while American companies keep so much cash that they can settle all their debts and still have cash left over as a group. As the significant increase in cash holding has been noticed, another unknown and observable pattern has also been noticeable. The average cash assets of focused companies are almost twice the cash assets of diversified companies. From 1990 to 2013, the difference in liquidity between diversified and focused companies was 15.8% of assets. In contrast, diversified companies have much lower cash balances than focused companies. Although there is extensive literature on diversification and cash holdings, the relationship between diversification and cash remains relatively unknown. It can be said that diversified companies are able to reduce dependence on a single sector or a group of related sectors by expanding to different business sectors. Finally, due to diversified companies having suitable investment opportunities and cash flows, such companies will have less cash balance. On the other side of the spectrum, focused companies have significantly more liquidity than diversified companies because these companies have much less diversity in investment positions and cash flows. Therefore, if the diversity in cash flows is effective through the correlation between investment opportunities and cashflows, it can be effective on the cash conversion cycle. Therefore, the current research aims to investigate and find the appropriate answer to whether the cash conversion cycle is different in diversified and focused companies.
Method: In order to carry out the present research, 12 years from 2009 to 2020 have been considered. However, due to the calculation of the variance in a 3-year cycle to measure the variable of cash flow fluctuations, the years 2009 and 2010 were not included in the estimation of the final results of the models. Therefore, the number of evaluated companies in the final sample of the current research has been reduced to 112 companies (1120 years of company data). The current research considers the cash conversion cycle, receivables period, inventory turnover period and payable period as dependent variables. Also, the independent variable of the upcoming study is the number of segments; the values of this variable have been taken into account according to the number of segments of the companies each year, which was measured using related diversification. For this reason, the companies are divided into two separate segments: the companies with one segment are placed in Group 1, and the companies with more than one segment are grouped in Group 2. The companies classified in group 1 are focused companies and the companies grouped in group 2 are diversified companies.
Results: The research results show that the increase in diversification has an inverse and significant relationship with the cash conversion cycle. In addition, with the increase in the amount of diversification, the receivables period decreases. Also, with the increase in the diversification rate, the inventory turnover period will decrease, and with the increase in the diversification rate, the payable period will increase. In addition, the increase in the amount of diversification, which will result in a decrease in the period of inventory turnover and a lengthening of the payable period, is statistically insignificant.
Conclusion: Based on the results, the cash conversion cycle in focused companies is significantly higher than in diversified companies. This is because focused companies have less investment opportunities and cash flow diversity. Therefore, such companies have a higher precautionary demand for cash. Finally, focused companies have significantly more liquidity than diversified companies. On the other hand, the diversification strategy will directly lead to a decrease in the cash balance of the companies. Diversified companies reduce savings to finance the large investment required to create capital in a new industry and pay the costs of diversification. Therefore, based on the results, diversified companies have a shorter cash conversion cycle than focused companies. Because diversified companies have good opportunities in suitable investment situations and cash flows, in this case, both the opportunities and the results of their divisions are completely independent. In other words, interdependence has been increasingly reduced. As a result, this makes the cash conversion cycle shorter in diversified companies than in focused companies. Finally, it can be mentioned that diversified companies have less balance than focused companies.

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