The details given below are a summary of the balance sheets of six public companies engaged in different industries:

The activities of each company are as follows: 1 Operator of a chain of retail supermarkets. 2 Sea ferry operator. 3 Property investor and house builder. Apart from supplying managers, including site management, for the house building side of its operations, this company completely subcontracts all building work. 4 A vertically integrated company in the food industry which owns farms, flour mills, bakeries and retail outlets. 5 Commercial bank with a network of branches. 6 Contractor in the civil engineering industry.

No company employs off balance sheet financing such as leasing.

(a) State which of the above activities relate to which set of balance sheet details, giving a brief summary of your reasoning in each case.

(b) What do you consider to be the major limitations of ratio analysis as a means of interpreting accounting information?

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Land and buildings Other fixed assets Stocks and work-in-progress Trade debtors Other debtors A % 10 17 do 16 = 44 de co B C E % % % TI % % 21 26 24 57 5 34 13 73 22 55 77 15 5+ 16 1 4 | 13 8 2 5 Cash and investments 12 20 100 100 m8 3 100 100 98 6 =|8| 3 100 100