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The ESADE Alumni Chile Chapter would like to invite you to this session entitled ''Lies, damned lies and ratios'', by Joan Massons (Lic&MBA 66/PhD 07), associate professor in ESADE’s Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting. The event is going to take place on Monday, October 17th at 7.30pm.

In recent years, rating agencies and some rather unprofessional professors have been churning out ratios and attaching more importance to the quantity of the ratios in their reports than the quality. Some ratios are attempts to compare unrelated and inconsistent concepts. The outcome is a grossly unprofessional lack of conceptual rigour which effectively undermines the ability form a realistic picture of a company’s finances.

In this conference, I will criticise quite harshly four ratios that suggest the complete opposite of what is actually happening inside a company: EBITDA to financial debt, ROCE, EBITDA to interest, and EBITDA to net sales.

Thanks to my criticism of these ratios in different conferences and articles, and also the work of other professors and finance managers who have listened to me or read my work, these ratios have been laid to rest in quite a few companies and banks, but much remains to be done. Let’s hope that the forthcoming conference will be yet another step towards safeguarding professional responsibility.

Joan Massons

He has been Director and is Associate Professor of the ESADE’s Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from ESADE - Universitat Ramon Llull. He is the author of numerous books and articles and has served as Member of the Board for numerous firms as an independent adviser. He also works as a professional consultant in the corporate appraisal and financial strategy areas. Please save the date and register to book your seat. Partners and business contacts are also welcome and you can register them as guests.

See you there!


For further information:
chapterchile@alumni.esade.edu

Language: Spanish

Event resouces. For members only!