Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
Chapter 19
CASH AND LIQUIDITY MANAGEMENT
CHAPTER WEB SITES
Section Web Address
19.2 www.carreker.fiserv.com
19.3 www.gtnews.com
19.5 www.bloomberg.com
CHAPTER ORGANIZATION
19.1 Reasons for Holding Cash
The Speculative and Precautionary Motives
The Transaction Motive
Compensating Balances
Costs of Holding Cash
Cash Management versus Liquidity Management
19.2 Understanding Float
Disbursement Float
Collection Float and Net Float
Float Management
Electronic Data Interchange and Check 21: The End of Float?
19.3 Cash Collection and Concentration
Components of Collection Time
Cash Collection
Lockboxes
Cash Concentration
Accelerating Collections: An Example
19.4 Managing Cash Disbursements
Increasing Disbursement Float
Controlling Disbursements
19.5 Investing Idle Cash
Temporary Cash Surpluses
Characteristics of Short-Term Securities
Some Different Types of Money Market Securities
19.6 Summary and Conclusions
Appendix 19A Determining the Target Cash Balance
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Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
A. The Basic Idea
B. The BAT Model
C. The Miller-Orr Model: A More General Approach
D. Implications of the BAT and Miller-Orr Models
E. Other Factors Influencing the Target Cash Balance
ANNOTATED CHAPTER OUTLINE
1. Reasons for Holding Cash
A. The Speculative and Precautionary Motives
Speculative motive – take advantage of unexpected opportunities
Precautionary motive – cash for emergencies
Lecture Tip: What is needed to satisfy the speculative and
precautionary motives is an ability to pay quickly – a need that is
met with liquidity. Although cash is the most liquid asset, assets
such as marketable securities are near substitutes for cash. The
ability to borrow quickly is also a close substitute for cash (having
a line of credit, for example).
Although holding cash and near-cash assets imposes opportunity
costs on the firm, it can be shown that the existence of this
“financial slack” is consistent with shareholder wealth
maximization. The ability to take advantage of unexpected and
often temporary financial opportunities is clearly valuable to the
firm. Myers and Majluf demonstrated in the Journal of Financial
Economics (1984) that lack of financial slack could cause
financial decision makers to forgo positive NPV projects because
of the negative signal sent by issuing equity. The key is to find the
balance between financial slack and excess liquidity.
B. The Transaction Motive
Day-to-day cash requirements to meet expenses
C. Compensating Balances
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Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
Cash balances held as part of a loan agreement or as compensation
for bank services received
Lecture Tip: A compensating balance requirement serves both as a
term of a loan imposed by the lender and as compensation for
services rendered by the bank. As such, it is sometimes negotiable.
For example, the borrower can attempt to have the size of the
required balance reduced or negotiate the nature of the terms.
Rather than requiring that the company maintain $100,000
balance at all times, the lender may agree to allow the firm to
maintain an average balance of $100,000 over a specified period.
The latter case gives the borrower more flexibility. You should also
point out that firms that normally hold significant amounts of
liquid assets do not find a compensating balance requirement
constraining. However, for many firms, it is cheaper to pay explicit
fees to obtain a loan than it is to maintain large no- or low-
interest-bearing accounts.
D. Costs of Holding Cash
The opportunity cost of holding cash is the return that could be
earned by investing the cash in other assets. However, there is also
a cost to converting between cash and other assets. The optimal
cash balance will consider the trade-off between these costs to
minimize the overall cost of holding cash.
Lecture Tip: It may be helpful to have students consider how they
handle their personal cash balances. Some may deposit their
paychecks or student loan proceeds in a non-interest-paying
checking account to use throughout the semester. Point out that
they are forgoing interest that they might receive on a savings
account, even though the balance might approach a low level by
the end of the term. If a student wants to maximize the interest
earned on a savings account, s/he must carefully monitor the
checking account balance to make sure that checks are able to
clear. There is a happy medium between having too much idle cash
and too little. Interest bearing checking accounts have mitigated
the need for this balancing act to some extent. The same concepts
hold true for a corporation.
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Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
E. Cash Management versus Liquidity Management
Liquidity management is a fairly broad area that concerns the
optimal quantity of liquid assets a firm should have, including
accounts receivable and inventory. Cash management deals with
the optimization of the collection and disbursement of cash.
2. Understanding Float
Book balance – the amount of cash recorded in the accounting
records of the firm
Available balance – the amount of cash the bank says is available
to be withdrawn from the account (may not be the same as the
amount of checks deposited less the amount of checks paid,
because deposits are not normally available immediately)
Float = Available balance – book balance
A. Disbursement Float
Positive float implies that checks that have been written have not
yet cleared. The company needs to make sure that it adjusts the
available balance so that it does not think that there is more money
to spend than there actually is.
Disbursement float – generated by checks the firm has written that
have not yet cleared the bank; arrangements can be made so that
this money is invested in marketable securities until needed to
cover the checks
B. Collection Float and Net Float
Negative float implies that checks that have been deposited are not
yet available. The firm needs to be careful that it does not write
checks over the available balance, or the checks may bounce.
Collection float – generated by checks that have been received by
the firm but are not yet included in the available balance at the
bank
Managers need to be more concerned with net float and available
balances than with the book balance.
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Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
Lecture Tip: It may help to personalize the issue of float. Ask the
students if they have ever written a check a day or two before
receiving their paycheck, even though, on the day when the check
was mailed, their checking account had insufficient funds to cover
it. This is an example of using disbursement float. We recognize
that the time for the check to travel through the mail and then be
processed and cleared should allow enough time for the paycheck
to clear our bank. We do need to be careful about this process,
however. The check we wrote may go through the system faster
than anticipated, and it may take the paycheck longer to become
available than anticipated. In this case, our check may bounce, or
at the very least our credit line is tapped and we end up paying
some unexpected interest charges.
C. Float Management
The three components of float are:
-Mail float – the time the check is in the mail
-Processing float – handling time between receipt and deposit
-Availability float – time for the check to clear the banking system
Float management – speeding up collections (reducing collection
float) and slowing down disbursements (increasing disbursement
float)
Measuring Float
There are two distinct cases: (a) periodic collections and (b)
continuous or steady-state collections.
For periodic collections, average daily float = (check amount*days
delay) / (# days in period)
Example – Periodic Collections: Suppose a $10,000 check is
mailed to Belief Systems, Inc. every two weeks. It spends two days
in the mail, one day at Belief Systems offices and is credited to
Belief Systems’ bank account two days after deposit, for a total
delay of five days. Over the 14-day period, the float is $10,000 for
five days and $0 for nine days; then the cycle starts over. The
average float is (5*10,000 + 9*0)/14 = $3,571.43.
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Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
Example – Continuous Collections: Suppose average daily checks
arriving at Hector Company amount to $2,000. The checks take an
average of three days to arrive in the mail, one day to process and
two days to be credited to the bank account. The total collection
delay is six days, and the average daily float is 6*2000 = $12,000.
Eliminating all delays would free up $12,000; eliminating one
day’s delay would free up $2,000.
Real-World Tip: The Expedited Funds Availability Act (EFAA)
governs the availability of funds deposited by firms. The following
rules apply (based on US Code: Title 12 Section 4002 as of
1/23/00):
–Cash or electronic payment and government checks are available
the day after deposit.
-Local checks are available two days after deposit.
-Non-local checks are available five days after deposit.
Note that these rules indicate the maximum time for availability.
Banks can make funds available sooner if they choose. Also,
deposits made at ATMs can have a different schedule due to the
processing time required.
Cost of Collection Float
The benefit of reducing collection delays is directly reflected in the
change in average daily float. Every dollar reduction in average
daily float is a dollar freed up for use in perpetuity. The change in
the average daily float that any plan to hasten collections might
make is also the most the firm would be willing to pay for faster
collections.
Example – Periodic Collections: What is the most that Belief
Systems would pay to speed up collections by one day? If the
collections delay were reduced from five days to four days, the
average daily float would go from $3,571.43 to $2,857.14. So, the
most the company would be willing to pay is 3571.43 – 2857.14 =
714.29.
Example – Continuous Collections: How much would Hector save
if they reduced their collection delay from six days to three? The
average daily float for three days’ delay is $6,000, so the company
would save 12,000 – 6,000 = $6,000. This is the most it would be
willing to pay.
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Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
Lecture Tip: The concept of net float can be emphasized with an
example that illustrates the changes in the balance sheet that result
from a decrease in collection float and an increase in disbursement
float. Consider a firm that has credit sales of $100,000 per day.
Inventory of $80,000 per day is purchased on credit. The company
has an average collection period of 30 days and an average
payables period of 20 days. The relevant balance sheet would be
as follows:
Accounts receivable = $3,000,000=(100,000*30)
Accounts payable = $1,600,000 =(80,000*20)
This situation requires external financing of 3,000,000 – 1,600,000
= $1,400,000. Checks, whether received or sent, have a three-day
delay in the mail. Therefore, the company has a net float of
–3*100,000 + 3*80,000 = -60,000. If the company could speed up
its receivables collection by one day and delay payments by one
day, net float would become positive (-2*100,000 + 4*80,000 =
120,000). The initial change to the balance sheet accounts would
be:
Additional Cash = $180,000
Accounts Receivables = $2,900,000
Accounts Payable = $1,680,000
The accounts receivable debit balance is reduced by $100,000
(source of funds) and the accounts payable account is increased by
$80,000 (source of funds). The net source of funds equals the
change in float, and the additional cash can be used to decrease
the external financing required.
Real-World Tip: The Institution Investor (September, 1985)
provides a lengthy discussion of legal and ethical questions
surrounding cash management. The article, “Cash management:
Where do you draw the line,” by Barbara Donnelly, focuses on the
E.F. Hutton check kiting scandal. In retrospect, it is clear that the
value of lost reputation far exceeded the savings gained via the
company’s cash management strategies.
D. Electronic Data Interchange and Check 21: The End of Float?
EDI – exchanging information electronically.
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Chapter 19 – Cash and Liquidity Management
A financial use is to send invoices electronically and then receive
payment electronically. Corporations spend substantial amounts on
setting up these systems. Most banks also offer these services,
beyond just on-line bill paying, to their retail customers.
3. Cash Collection and Concentration
A. Components of Collection Time
Collection Time = mailing time + processing delay + availability
delay
B. Cash Collection
Cash collection policies depend on the nature of the business.
Firms can choose to have checks mailed to one or more locations
(reduces mailing time) or allow preauthorized payments. Many
firms also accept online payments, either with a credit card or with
authorization to request the funds directly from your bank.
C. Lockboxes
Lockboxes are special post office boxes that allow banks to
process incoming checks and send the information on account
payment to the firm. They reduce processing time and often reduce
mail time because several regional lockboxes can be used.
D. Cash concentration
The practice of moving cash from multiple banks into the firm’s
main accounts. This is a common practice that is used in
conjunction with lockboxes.
E. Accelerating Collections: An Example
Cash collection choices are like any other project of the firm and
can be evaluated using NPV.
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