Strategisk analyse og værdiansættelse, samt rating og kreditvurdering af Coop Danmark A/S

Abstrakt

Coop Danmark A/S (Coop) is a market leader within the Danish retail industry. Nevertheless, the company has not performed well over the last couple of years, opposed to its main competitor Dansk Supermarked A/S (DS) who shows flowering results. Given the retail market, the products they both supply and their similar customer base, the two companies should not have so different results. DS was sold to Salling Fonden in January 2014 for an amount of DKK 41.000m. Both companies are unlisted. The purpose of this thesis is to estimate the theoretical value of Coop based on a strategic analysis and a financial analysis, and then compare the result to the sales price of DS seen from an external analyst point of view. Given Coops poor performance the last couple of years the thesis will also include a credit rating seen from an external creditor’s point of view. The rating will be based on the strategic analysis, the official financial statements and the reformulated statements. The strategic analysis is based on historical data and focuses primarily on the external environment, given that only secondary data is available. Analytical tools are used to help understand the historical and current level of profitability and growth, but also to help estimate the future level. The results shows that Coop has a lot of strategic issues that should be addressed now so they can maintain their market position in the future and turn their financial results. The financial analysis is based on consolidated financial reports from the last 5 years. The financial statements are reformulated and key figures are calculated. Key figures for the profitability are decomposed to analyse the current profitability. The results show weakened figures and a weakened company that funds activities with more and more debt. Operating costs are not restated earnings and investments are unchanged. In addition, the credit period for debtors and creditors are increased to maintain liquidity, and the depreciation horizon is adjusted to boost the result among other things. The theoretical value for Coop, after a liquidity discount, is estimated to be DKK 24.974m, which is significantly below the sales price for DS and stresses that Coop is in a difficult situation. Even though this level has been estimated to be realistic, it should be reminded that the value estimation involves a certain level of insecurity. The sensitivity analysis shows that the estimated value of Coop is very sensitive to changes in the weighted cost of capital. The credit rating shows similar results. Coop is rated Ba, which indicates that the company may have strategic- or management problems and that the financial figures may be weakened. An existing creditor would be cautious and would probably try to reduce the risk associated with this debtor. A new creditor would most likely refuse to lend money to a company like Coop given its rating and insecure future.