Unrestricted Cash

Categories: Accounting, Credit

Cash without the corset.

It can be spent anywhere. It's tracked. The accountants at your law firm know that the money exists. But it just kinda appeared in the unrestricted cash account of that ambulance your now-most-senior partner manually wrestled to the ground, getting the guy who was struck down by that rich drunk in his Rolls. The fee was so big that the firm took 3% of it and put it in a Fun Fund, just for the pleasure of the firm's employees.

So...wanna go buy everyone a latte? Have at it. The cash is there for the taking.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is free cash flow?13 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop what is free cash flow Well it's

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the cash a company produces and pretty much after everything

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like whatever dot com has one hundred million bucks in

00:12

pre tax profits A tax bill of thirty milton at

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them seventy million dollars in earnings But they also had

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depreciation on their whatever stamping factory of ten million dollars

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So in fact they generated eighty million dollars in cash

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while having seventy million in earnings And no there were

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no tricky things done in the year to draw down

00:30

inventory volumes to produce a lot more cash or any

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other chick a nunnery here The company also has committed

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to paying a dividend of five milic order or twenty

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mil a year That dividend payment gets included in the

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free cash flow calculation as well So after eighty million

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in cash production from operations the dividend the company pays

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out to shareholders then is taken out of that eighty

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So the free cash number Yep sixty million bucks And

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why does this number even matter Well if you go

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old school on investing and think about what a share

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of a given company buys you in the form of

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earnings and cash or dead on the balance sheet this

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year Next year in the next you can think of

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whatever dot com in terms of having a free cash

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flow yield That is if the company was valued at

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a billion dollars and it had one hundred million dollars

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of cash and one hundred million dollars of dead zero

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net cash or debt And yes this is oh so

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theoretical Well then the company would have a six percent

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free cash flow yield right because it's generating sixty million

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after everything over a bill so that sixty mill is

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the free cash flow But investors get the free cash

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flow in some form most likely justin accumulation of cash

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on the balance sheet and then they also get another

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twenty mill in dividends So add to that twenty million

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dividends and assuming you get no growth or decline while

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investors or buying in it a billion dollar valuation while

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they be getting a total of eight percent of their

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cash back in one form or another each year either

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in just cash produced by the company free castle and

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or that dividend or set another way the sixty million

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free cash flow would presumably then just accumulate on the

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balance sheet Adding value to the company is cash piled

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up or would be used wisely in one form or

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another presumably like to buy back stock or by competitors

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or whatever other whatever's The key idea here is that

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free cash flow is truly free It's not encumbered It

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is an ode for dividends or other big sinking fund

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obligations This year or other things it's free and available

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for the company to do You know whatever they want 00:02:26.105 --> [endTime] with

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