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Corporate Finance Ross Westerfield Jaffe Sixth Edition

29Chapter Twenty Nine

Credit Management

Prepared by

Gady JacobyUniversity of Manitoba

and

Sebouh AintablianAmerican University of Beirut

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Executive Summary

• When a firm sells goods and services:

(1) it can be paid in cash immediately or

(2) it can wait for a time to be paid by extending credit to its customers.

• Granting credit is investing in a customer, an investment tied to the sale of a product or service.

• This chapter examines the firm’s decision to grant credit.

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Chapter Outline

29.1 Terms of the Sale29.2 The Decision to Grant Credit: Risk and Information 29.3 Optimal Credit Policy29.4 Credit Analysis29.5 Collection Policy29.6 Other Aspects of Credit Policy29.7 Summary & Conclusions

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Introduction

• A firm’s credit policy is composed of:– Terms of the sale

– Credit analysis

– Collection policy

• This chapter discusses each of the components of credit policy that makes up the decision to grant credit.

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The Cash Flows of Granting Credit

Credit sale is made

Customer mails

cheque

Firm deposits cheque

Bank credits firm’s

account

Accounts receivable

Cash collection

Time

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29.1 Terms of the Sale

• The terms of sale of composed of– Credit Period– Cash Discounts– Credit Instruments

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Credit Period

• Credit periods vary across industries.• Generally a firm must consider three factors in

setting a credit period:– The probability that the customer will not pay.– The size of the account.– The extent to which goods are perishable.

• Lengthening the credit period generally increases sales

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Cash Discounts

• Often part of the terms of sale.• Tradeoff between the size of the discount and the

increased speed and rate of collection of receivables.

• An example would be “3/10 net 30”– The customer can take a 3% discount if he pays within 10

days.– In any event, he must pay within 30 days.

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The Interest Rate Implicit in 3/10 net 30

A firm offering credit terms of 3/10 net 30 is essentially offering their customers a 20-day loan.

To see this, consider a firm that makes a $1,000 sale on day 0Some customers will pay on day 10 and take the discount.

Other customers will pay on day 30 and forgo the discount.

0 10 30

$970

0 10 30

$1,000

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0 10 30

+$970 -$1,000

A customer that forgoes the 3% discount to pay on day 30 is borrowing $970 for 20 days and paying $30 interest:

36520)1(

000,1$970$

r

970$

000,1$)1( 36520 r

%35.747435.01970$

000,1$ 20

365

r

The Interest Rate Implicit in 3/10 net 30

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Credit Instruments

• Most credit is offered on open account—the invoice is the only credit instrument.

• Promissory notes are IOUs that are signed after the delivery of goods

• Commercial drafts call for a customer to pay a specific amount by a specific date. The draft is sent to the customer’s bank, when the customer signs the draft, the goods are sent.

• Banker’s acceptances allow a bank to substitute its creditworthiness for the customer, for a fee.

• Conditional sales contracts let the seller retain legal ownership of the goods until the customer has completed payment.

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29.2 The Decision to Grant Credit: Risk and Information

• Consider a firm that is choosing between two alternative credit policies:– “In God we trust—everybody else pays cash.”– Offering their customers credit.

)( 000 CPQ • The only cash flow of the first strategy is

• The expected cash flows of the credit strategy are:'

0'0PQh

0 1

'0

'0QC

We incur costs up front…

…and get paid in 1 period by h% of our customers.

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29.2 The Decision to Grant Credit: Risk and Information

)( 000 CPQNPVcash

•The NPV of the cash only strategy is

)1(

'0

'0'

0'0

Bcredit r

PQhQCNPV

•The NPV of the credit strategy is

The decision to grant credit depends on four factors:

1. The delayed revenues from granting credit,

2. The immediate costs of granting credit,

3. The probability of repayment, h

4. The discount rate, rB

'0

'0QP

'0

'0QC

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Example of the Decision to Grant Credit

• A firm currently sells 1,000 items per month on a cash basis for $500 each.

• If they offered terms net 30, the marketing department believes that they could sell 1,300 items per month.

• The collections department estimates that 5% of credit customers will default.

• The cost of capital is 10% per annum.

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Example of the Decision to Grant Credit

The NPV of cash only: 000,100$)400$500($000,1

No Credit Net 45 Quantity sold 1,000 1,300Selling price $500 $500Unit cost $400 $425Probability of payment 100% 95%Credit period (days) 0 30Discount rate p.a. 10%

The NPV of Net 30:

58.181,60$)10.1(

95.0500$300,1425$300,1

365/30

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Example of the Decision to Grant Credit

• How high must the credit price be to make it worthwhile for the firm to extend credit?

The NPV of Net 30 must be at least as big as the NPV of cash only:

365/30

'0

)10.1(

95.0300,1425$300,1000,100$

P

95.0300,1)10.1()425$300,1000,100($ '0

365/30 P

50.532$95.0300,1

)10.1()425$300,1000,100($ 365/30'

0

P

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The Value of New Information about Credit Risk

• The most that we should be willing to pay for new information about credit risk is the present value of the expected cost of defaults:

)1(

)1(

0$)1(

'0

'0

'0

'0

hQC

rhQCNPV

Bdefault

In our earlier example, with a credit price of $500, we would be willing to pay $26,000 for a perfect credit screen.

000,26$)95.01(300,1400$)1('0

'0 hQC

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Future Sales and the Credit Decision

Do not give credit

Give credit

Customer pays h = 100%

Customer pays (Probability = h)

Customer defaults(Probability = 1– h)

Give credit

Do not give credit

Our first decision:

We refuse further sales to deadbeats.

We face a more certain credit decision with our paying customers:

Information is revealed at the end of the first period:

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29.3 Optimal Credit Policy

Carrying Costs

Total costs

C*

Costs in dollars

Level of credit extended

At the optimal amount of credit, the incremental cash flows from increased sales are exactly equal to the carrying costs from the increase in accounts receivable.

Opportunity costs

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29.3 Optimal Credit Policy

• Trade Credit is more likely to be granted if:1. The selling firm has a cost advantage over other lenders.

2. The selling firm can engage in price discrimination.

3. The selling firm can obtain favourable tax treatment.

4. The selling firm has no established reputation for quality products or services.

5. The selling firm perceives a long-term strategic relationship.

• The optimal credit policy depends on the characteristics of particular firms.

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Organizing the Credit Function

• Firms that run strictly internal credit operations are self-insured against default risk.

• An alternative is to buy credit insurance through an insurance company.

• In Canada, exporters may qualify for credit insurance through the Export Development Corporation (EDC).

• Large corporations commonly extend credit through a wholly owned subsidiary called a captive finance company.

• Securitization occurs when the selling firm sells its accounts receivable to a financial institution.

• During 1991--92 recession, some Canadian companies tightened their credit-granting rules to offset the higher probability of customer bankruptcy.

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29.4 Credit Analysis

• Credit Information– Financial Statements– Credit Reports on Customer’s Payment History with Other Firms– Banks– Customer’s Payment History with the Firm

• Credit Scoring: – The traditional 5 C’s of credit

• Character• Capacity• Capital • Collateral• Conditions

– Some firms employ sophisticated statistical models

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Credit Scoring

• Credit scoring refers to the process of:

(1) calculating a numerical rating for a customer based on information collected,

(2) granting or refusing credit based on the result.

• Financial Institutions have developed elaborate statistical models for credit scoring. This approach has the advantage of being objective as compared to scoring based on judgments on the 5 C’s.

• Credit scoring is used for business customers by Canadian chartered banks. Scoring for small business loans is a particularly attractive application because the technique offers the advantages of objective analysis.

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29.5 Collection Policy

• Collection refers to obtaining payment on past-due accounts.

• Collection Policy is composed of– The firm’s willingness to extend credit as reflected in the

firm’s investment in receivables.– Collection Effort

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Average Collection Period

• Measures the average amount of time required to collect an account receivable.

salesdaily Average

receivable Accounts period collection Average

• For example, a firm with average daily sales of $20,000 and an investment in accounts receivable of $150,000 has an average collection period of

days 5.7day000,20$

000,150$

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Accounts Receivable Aging Schedule

• Shows receivables by age of account.• The aging schedule is often augmented by the

payments pattern.• The payments pattern describes the lagged

collection pattern of receivables.• The longer an account has been unpaid, the less

likely it is to be paid.

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Collection Effort

• Most firms follow a protocol for customers that are past due:

1. Send a delinquency letter.2. Make a telephone call to the customer.3. Employ a collection agency.4. Take legal action against the customer.

• There is a potential for a conflict of interest between the collections department and the sales department.

• You need to strike a balance between antagonizing a customer and being taken advantage of by a deadbeat.

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29.6 Other Aspects of Credit Policy/Factoring

• The sale of a firm’s accounts receivable to a financial institution (known as a factor).

• The firm and the factor agree on the basic credit terms for each customer.

Firm

Factor

Customer

Customers send payment to the factor

The factor pays an agreed-upon percentage of the

accounts receivable to the firm. The factor bears the

risk of nonpaying customers

Goods

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Factoring

• Factoring in Canada is conducted by independent firms where main customers are small businesses.

• What factoring does is remove receivables from the balance sheet and so, indirectly, it reduces the need for financing.

• Firms financing their receivables through a chartered bank may also use the services of a factor to improve the receivables’ collateral value. This is called maturity factoring with assignment of equity.

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Credit Management in Practice

• To make monitoring easy, treasury credit staff call up customer information from a central database.

• The system also provides collections staff with a daily list of accounts due for a telephone call with a complete history of each account.

• Credit analysis uses an early warning system that examines the solvency risk of existing and new commercial accounts. The software scores the accounts based on financial ratios.

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29.7 Summary & Conclusions

1. The components of a firm’s credit policy are the terms of sale, the credit analysis, and the collection policy.

2. The decision to grant credit is a straightforward NPV problem.

3. Additional information about the probability of customer default has value, but must be weighed against the cost of the information.

4. The optimal amount of credit is a function of the conditions in which a firm finds itself.

5. The collection policy is the firm’s method for dealing with past-due accounts—it is an integral part of the decision to extend credit.