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Valuation Premium is a premium assigned by the insurer to the insurance company. It is the additional money paid by the insurer to avail the brand and services of the company.
Earned Premium typically reflects the premium collected by the insurance agency during the tenure of the policy that has expired to bear the risk of compensating the policyholder during the insured period. Insurance companies typically recognise the associated premium payment they take from the policyholder unearned till the expiry.
What is EBITDA? Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA) is a widely used financial metric in evaluating cash flows and profitability of a business. Market participants closely track EBITDA and apply it in decision making extensively. Although conventional investors like Charlie Munger had raised concerns over the use of EBITDA, it is very popular in markets, and M&A transactions are mostly priced on EBITDA-based valuation like EV/EBITDA (x). EBITDA is not recognised by IFRS and GAAP but is used extensively in the Corporate Finance world. It is now a mainstream financial metric that companies look to target. EBITDA depicts operational cash generation capacity of a firm in a given period. It acts as an alternative to financial metrics like revenue, profit or earnings per share. EBITDA allows to evaluate a business operationally and outcomes of operating decisions. Non-operating items are excluded to arrive at EBITDA. EBITDA excludes the impact of capital structure or debt/equity, and non-cash expenses like depreciation and amortisation. A particular criticism of EBITDA has been the inappropriate outlook of capital intensive businesses, which incur large depreciation expenses. Business with large assets incurs substantial costs related to repair and maintenance, which are not captured in EBITDA because depreciation expenses are accounted to calculate EBITDA. Meanwhile, EBITDA can paint an appropriate picture for asset-light business with lower capital intensity. While revenue, profit and earning per share remain sought-after headline generators for corporates, EBITDA has also found its growing application in the corporate finance world and is now a mainstream metric to evaluate a business financially. Perhaps the growth of asset-light business models has also added to the use of EBITDA. Its debt-agnostic approach to evaluate businesses has given reasons to investors, especially for high growth firms during capital expenditure cycles. But EBITDA has been present for close to four decades now. In the 1980s, the growth in corporate takeovers through leverage buyout transaction was on a boom. EBITDA grew popular to value heavy industries like broadcasting, telecommunication, utilities. John Malone is credited for coining this term. He was working at TCI- a cable TV provider. Since EBITDA has remained an important metric to determine purchase price multiples and is highly used in M&A transactions. EBITDA’s application in large businesses with capital intensive assets that are written down over a long period has been a source of concern for many investors. Although EBITDA is an effective metric to evaluate the profitability of a firm, it does not reflect actual cash flow picture of a firm during a period. Also, it does not account for capital expenditures of the firm, which are crucial in successfully running a business. EBITDA does not give a fair cash flow position because it leaves out crucial items like working capital, debt and interest repayments, fixed expenses, capital expenditure. At the outset, there can be times when EBITDA may overstate performance, value and ability to repay debt. How to calculate EBITDA? NPAT: Net Profit after tax is the amount reported by a firm in the given period. It is present on the income statement of the firm and is used in the calculation of earnings per share of an entity. To calculate EBITDA, interest expense, tax, depreciation and amortisation are added to NPAT. Interest Expense: Firms can employ debt in their capital structure, and interest expense is funds paid to lenders as interest costs on principal debt. Most companies have different financing structure, and excluding interest payments enable comparing firms on operating grounds through EBITDA. Tax: Firms also pay income tax on profits. Excluding taxes gives a fair picture of the operating performance of the business since tax vary across jurisdictions, and sometimes according to size of business as well. Depreciation: Depreciation is the non-cash expense to account for the steady reduction in value of tangible assets. Firms can incur depreciation expense on machinery, vehicles, office assets, equipment etc. Amortisation: Amortisation is the non-cash expense to account for the reduction in the value of intangible assets like patents, copyrights, export license, import license etc. Operating Profit: Operating profit is the core profit of a firm generated out of operations. It includes cash and non-cash expenses of a firm, excluding income tax and interest expenses. Operating Profit is also called Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT). Read: EBIT vs EBITDA What is TTM EBITDA and NTM EBITDA? Trailing Twelve Months (TTM) or Last Twelve Months (LTM) EBITDA represents the EBITDA of the past twelve months of the firm. It allows to review the last operation performance of the business. Whereas NTM EBITDA represents 12-month forward forecast EBITDA of the firm. NTM EBITDA is also one-year forward EBITDA. Market participants are provided with consensus analysts’ estimates for a firm, which also include NTM EBITDA, NTM EPS, NTM Net Income or NPAT. What is EBITDA margin? EBITDA margin is the percentage proportion of a firm EBITDA against total revenue. It indicates the operational profitability of the firm and cash flows to some extent. If a firm has a higher margin, it means the level of EBITDA against revenue is higher. It is widely used in comparing similar companies and enable to evaluate businesses relatively. If a firm has a total revenue of $1 million and EBITDA is $800k, the EBITDA margin is 80%. What is adjusted EBITDA? Adjusted EBITDA is calculated to provide a fair view business after adding back non-cash items, one-time expenses, unrealised gains and losses, share-based payments, goodwill impairments, asset write-downs etc.
What are ETFs? ETFs are similar to funds where pooled money of investors is managed by a fund manager, who runs the ETF. These funds invest in equity, debt, commodity or any other asset class, depending on its offering. Good read: Mastering the Basics of Investing in ETFs Price of the ETF is based on a value of net assets in the fund and is subject to change each trading day consistent with underlying changes in the value of net assets. Since ETFs are traded in markets just like shares, the quoted price of an ETF either reflects a discount to its NAV or a premium to its NAV. Investors have flocked to ETFs because of low-cost proposition and opportunity to take exposure in a specific pool of assets, which are professionally managed by an investment team with the investment manager. Some ETFs are also used as a proxy to define sentiment in an underlying sector, commodity or index since ETFs are actively traded in market hours, incorporating the latest information in prices. Fund management businesses have continued launching new and innovative ETFs, which have seen great demand over the past. Read: Gold ETFs register massive capital influx; while PDI, GPP, ERM, AME, RED Under Investors’ Lens Large and popular ETFs have also defied liquidity problems because of large scale investor participation. But it remains a problem with lesser-known ETFs with small market participation. ETFs also pay distributions to the holders that are either derived through interest income, dividend income or capital gain. Active and Passive ETFs With ETFs markets growing strongly as ever, there remains a divide between active fund managers and passive fund managers. Passive investment strategies have grown immensely popular among market participants over time. This strategy is cost effective. Many seasoned investors such as Warren Buffett, John C Bogle- founder of the Vanguard Group have endorsed passive ETFs. Active ETFs do not track a benchmark, and performance is not tracked to any given index. These funds are based on countries, sectors, market capitalisation, asset classes, etc., and active investment management allows a manager to beat the returns delivered by broader markets or indices. If you look at the great investors like Warren Buffet, Philip Fisher or Peter Lynch, they have set themselves as a preamble for active investors, and their record of delivering sustainable returns over the long term continues to attract investors to active alleys of markets. Since Passive ETFs are designed to match returns of respective benchmarks, there is no scope of delivering outperformance no guarantee that fund will not underperform the benchmark. However, the expenses charged to investors are relatively lower compared to Active ETFs. Passive ETFs are cheaper than Active ETFs because the use of resources is limited in the former. Since they are designed to match the benchmark and its underlying securities, trading in Passive ETFs is mostly automated running on algorithms, and stock picking is not required, thereby no research. Read: ETFs: Investors Up the Ante and ETFs Run the Show for Long-Term Returns ETFs based on asset classes and style Sector ETFs: These are the most common type of ETFs in market. Sector ETFs track specific sectors like Information Technology, Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary, Metal & Mining. These are similar to index funds but are actively traded in stock exchanges. Equity ETFs: Equity ETFs may include equity-focused Sector ETFs. As the name suggests equity, these funds invest in stocks independently or are benchmarked to a specific index. Perhaps, Equity ETFs are the most common ETFs. Fixed Income ETFs: These funds invest in fixed income instruments and pay distributions out of the interest earned on bonds. Further Fixed Income ETFs can be separated as investment-grade ETFs, high-yield ETFs, Government bond ETFs. Commodity ETFs: Commodity ETFs invest in physical commodities like precious metal, agricultural goods, natural resource. These funds include products like Gold ETFs, Oil ETFs, Grain ETFs, Silver ETFs. Good read: Investing in Commodity ETFs Short ETFs: Also known as inverse ETFs, these funds are designed to benefit when the benchmark is falling. Short ETFs hold short positions in the benchmark index futures or constituents of the index to benefit from fall in value or prices. To know more about short selling read: Minting Money While the Asset Price Tanks; Enter the World of Short Selling Leveraged ETFs: Leveraged ETFs use derivatives to amplify the returns and risks of a fund. These are also called geared ETFs. Leveraged ETFs may also hold equity or bonds along with the derivatives to amplify the net asset value movement of funds. Do read: All You Need to Know About Exchange Traded Funds Why investors prefer ETFs? Passive investment vehicles continue to appear compelling to a large investor base, and there are numerous reasons driving the demand for passive investment vehicles. Low-cost and no minimum investment: ETFs have lower expenses compared to traditional mutual funds, and most of the funds have no minimum investment criteria. As a result, the market for ETFs has grown strong, due to its reach to investors with limited capital. Must read: Mutual Funds vs. ETFs: Which Are Better? Exposure to specific asset classes: Investors with large portfolio also use ETFs to enter to into specific asset classes like Gold ETF or Commodity ETF, but not limited to sector ETFs, theme-based active ETFs like technology, mobility, e-commerce etc. Portfolio diversification: ETFs provide investors with an opportunity to diversify a portfolio of concentrated stocks by including exposure to specific sectors, indices, and commodities. More importantly, the diversification is available at a low-cost investment, which further drives the need for ETFs in a portfolio. Accessibility: It is perhaps the most compelling value ETFs provide to investors. Since ETFs are available on stock exchanges like shares, investor participation remains strong, and some popular ETFs boast high liquidity levels. Read: Confused on How to Invest in ETFs? We Have Some Tips! Further read: 6 Reasons to look at ETFs
Key Performance Indicators are used to evaluate the performance of an activity. It helps to analyse the efficiency of a business, company, project etc. KPI is widely applied in various performance evaluation methods.