A little bit about my firm….

About my company, Allegra Orthopaedics

Australian based company, Allegra Orthopaedics has been in business for over 20 years, specialising in joint replacement products; such a hip, shoulder, knee, hand/wrist and feet/ankle. Their company mission to bring pain free movement to people’s lives, they achieve this through world-wide leading orthopaedic products and Australian innovations.

I am pretty happy with the firm I was allocated, I have a slight interest in medical facts, how the human body works and adapts. Learning about this firm will be quiet interesting for me, hopefully I will still think this in a few weeks time. Being an Australian company, it was easier to mentally picture the locations mentioned in their company history and staff biographies. I am some what geographically and navigationally challenged 90% of the time.

Just briefly going over the companies 2017 financial statement I noticed that they have recently reduced a lot of liabilities (loan amounts, etc) and increased their profit margin. While I am still reading the financial statement and trying to understand it, they have made quiet a turn around from the previous year. Once I have a better understanding of financial statements and spreadsheets, it will be interesting to know how they were going in the previous years to finally make this improvement to the business.

I have three board members, two directors and a non-executive chairman. Between the three members they have over 90 years experience in owning, running, growth and development in businesses.

Note: For those who do not know, an Non-Executive Chairman does not occupy a management position within the company. This position operates separately from the company, receives plans and proposals from the CEO through the corporate secretary then presents these to the board for approval.

Together they hold a wide range of degrees such as Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Economics. Though they also have vast experience in areas of Corporate and Commercial Law, regulatory issues, corporate financing, takeovers, trade practices and collective investments, investigations and enforcement actions and risk management.

Whilst none of the board members holds an accounting degree they do however have a great deal of experience in corporate financing. What struck me as interesting was the company secretary held an accounting diploma (also many other degrees and diplomas). After some intense googling I learnt that it is apart of a corporate secretary job/responsibilities to assist, ensure completion and logement of statutory forms/returns and reporting eg. Annual and half-yearly accounts, annual returns.

Allegra Orthopaedics commercial and finance director does hold a bachelor of accounting, while I didn’t find this all that surprising but you would have to hope the finance director had an accounting background. Though he is not a board member, he holds a senior managers position within the company. Showing three out of seven senior management positions held a degree or had experience in accounting or corporate finance.

While reading my firms financial statement I came across EBITDA (earning before interesting, taxes, depreciation and amortization). It was mentioned that it is not prescribed by Australian Accounting Standards. It states the use of EBITDA to represent the profit under AAS adjusted for non-specificant and significant items. After some research to find out what this meant, it is used to measure a company’s net income before deductions such as taxes, depreciation and amortization have been deducted. (Amortization can refer to a repayment of a loan principal over time). Has anyone else had a term similar to this? Or something completely new or different to tem? Let me know if you have!

This is all for now, leave a comment about your company, it would be interesting to know who everyone received.

Till next time!
Leesa