Cash Flow from Investing Activities

What is Cash flow from Investing Activities?

Cash flow from investing activities refers to cash inflow and outflow of cash from investing in assets (including intangibles), purchasing of assets like property, plant and equipment, shares, debt and from sale proceeds of assets or disposal of shares/debt or redemption of investments like collection from loans advanced or debt issued.

It provides information on cash inflow and outflow related to purchases and sales of assets (Property, Plant & Equipment, etc.), loans made to suppliers or the ones received from the customer, and any payments related to merger & acquisitions.

In a nutshell, we can say that cash flow from investing activities reports the purchase and sale of long-term investments and property, plant, and equipment.

List of Items Included in Cash Flow from Investing Activities 

Cash flow from Investments include all the transactions involving acquiring and selling long-term investment, property, plant, and equipment

These items are found in the non-current portion of the balance sheet

• Purchase of property, plant, and equipment (cash outflow)
• Sales of property, plant, and equipment (cash inflow)
• Investment in joint ventures and affiliates (cash outflow)
• Payments for business acquired (cash outflow)
• Proceeds from sales of assets (cash inflow)
• Investments in marketable securities (cash outflow)

It is always easier to understand when we create some questions and then answer them. So here are a few questions which, when answered, would help us in understanding the topic in an easier manner.

1. What happens to the cash account of the company that has purchased land?
2. What happens to the cash account of the company sold land?

Answer to Question 1: In this case, the cash account would decrease, as the company would need to pay some cash for the land purchased. The double entry system of accounting would lead to an increase in assets account. In this case, asset account under consideration is Property, Plant & Equipment.

Answer to Question 2: In this case, the cash account would increase, as the company would get cash for the land sold. The double entry system of accounting would lead to a decrease in assets account. In this case, asset account under consideration is Property, Plant & Equipment.

Cash Flow from Investment Example (Basic)

Let us assume that Mr. X starts a new business and has planned that at the end of the month, he will prepare his financial statements like income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.

1^st month: There was no revenue in the first month and no such operating expense; hence income statement will result in net income to be zero. In cash flow from investing activities, there was no activity, too. Hence it will remain at zero.

Cash from Investing activities (for the first month)
Investing Activities	$              –

2^nd Month: The Company made some investment in land and property during the month amounting to $100000. This is cash outflow and hence negative.

CFI (at the end of the second month)
Investing Activities	$    – 100000

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How to Calculate Cash Flow from Investments?

Let’s calculate CFI when we have the balance sheet data.

Also, assume that the gain on the sale of land is $20,000

As we already know that CFI is related to non-current asset portions of the balance sheet. There are two main items in non-current assets – Land and Property, Plant, and Equipment.

• Cash inflow from sale of Land  = Decrease in Land (BS) + Gain from Sale of Land = $80,000 – $70,000 + $20,000 = $30,000
• Cash outflow from purchase of property plant and equipment (PPE) = $120,000 – $170,000 = -$50,000
• Cash flow from Investments formula = Cash inflow from Sale of Land + Cash outflow from PPE = $30,000 – $50,000 = -$20,000

CFI is an outflow of $20,000

Cash Flow from Investing Activities Example (Apple)

Now let us have a look at few more sophisticated cash flow statement for companies which are listed entities in NYSE.

source: Apple 10K Filings 

• Apple’s cash flow from investment activities was an outflow of $45.977 bn.
• Apple is heavily investing in the purchase of marketable securities (cash outflow). Apple purchased $142.428 bn worth of marketable securities in 2015!
• In addition, Apple generated cash inflows by selling these marketable securities (cash inflows). Apple sold its marketable securities and generate $90.536 bn as cash inflows.
• In addition, Apple invested in the acquisition of property, plant, and equipment to the tune of $12.73bn in 2015.

Cash Flow from Investing Activities Example (Amazon)

source: Amazon SEC filings

Now let us interpret the above CFI and how indicative it is of the situation of the company. Some important points on Amazon’s CFI are:

• Amazon has continuously invested in the Purchase of property and equipment, including software and web development. Amazon’s cash outflow for this was $4.590bn and $4.893 bn in 2015 and 2014, respectively.
• You should be mindful that expenses under this head can be of a great indication of where the company is heading to.
• The quality of Capex can be determined by reading the management discussion & analysis. This will provide great insights into where the company is planning to be in the next few years. Some important points to look in Capex are (i) quality of Capex (ii) business proposition of the linked Capex (iii) proportion of the maintenance CAPEX.
• Another important point about Amazon’s cash outflows is that they have been acquiring smaller companies each year. They made acquisitions worth $795 million in 2015.
• Amazon has been generating cash inflows by selling its marketable securities. Amazon sold $3.025bn dollars of marketable securities in 2015.

Cash Flow from Investing Activities Example (JPMorgan Bank)

Below is the CFI from JPMorgan Chase.

source: JPMorgan SEC Filings

Since this entity is a bank, a lot of line items will be completely different from what it is for others. There are many line items that are only applicable to banks or companies in financial services. Now let us interpret the above statements and how indicative it is of the situation of the company. Some important points from JPMorgan’s cash flow from investing activities are:

• JPMorgan’s investing activities predominantly include loans originated to be held for investment, the investment securities portfolio, and other short-term interest-earning assets.
• Also, note that the cash flow from investments was $106.98 bn (cash inflow) in 2015, primarily because of the deposits with the bank to the tune of $144.46 bn.
• Other changes in loan resulted in a cash outflow of $108.9 bn in 2015 as compared to a much lower number in prior years.

What analyst should know?

Till now, we have seen three different companies in three different industries and how cash means different for them. For a product company, cash is the king. For the service company, it is a way to run a business, and for a bank, it is all about cash. These three companies have different things to offer in the cash flow from Investing activities part of the cash flow statement. However, it is important and imperative to understand the statement should not be singled out and seen. They should always be seen in conjuncture and a combination of other statements and management discussion & analysis.

Also, you should note that cash flow from investments provides us with a trend analysis of the companies capital expenditure (will help understand if the company is in a growing or a steady phase). This is very useful when we are projecting the financial statements of the company.

Another interesting aspect to look into this CFI is the column of proceeds from the disposal of fixed assets, proceeds of the disposal of a business. If the figures are substantially high, it can help in the visualization of why the company is disposing of assets.

Conclusion

Cash flow from Investing Activities is the second of the three parts of the cash flow statement that shows the cash inflows and outflows from investing in an accounting year; investing activities includes cash flows from the sale of fixed asset, purchase of a fixed asset, sale and purchase of investment of business in shares or properties, etc. Investors earlier use to look into the income statement and balance sheet for clues about the situation of the company. However, over the years, investors have now also started looking at each one of these statements alongside the conjunction of cash flow statements. This actually helps in getting the whole picture and also helps to take a much more calculated investment decision.

As we have seen throughout the article, we are able to see that cash flow from investing activities is a great indicator of the core investing activity of the company.

Video on Cash Flow from Investing Activities

Related Articles

This has been a guide to Cash Flow from Investing Activities, formula, and its calculations. Here we also look at Cash Flow from Investments examples of Apple, Amazon & JPMorgan.

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