"Taking operating cash flow and subtracting capital expenses such as acquisitions leaves Slater & Gordon with a free cash flow figure of minus $161 million in the past 6 years. In other words, the company has generated zero value for shareholders and has actually gone backwards."
Looks like my understanding of how company finances work is different to yours. I see the same facts in the context of stage of development. Companies tend to go through phases of development, eg. 1. Startup and getting established. Characterised by capital expenditure, losses, negative operating cash flow, but in due course increasing revenues and moving towards profit. 2. Growth. Company is now profitable, but there are still opportuities for expansion, so dividends are nil or small while cash from operations and/or borrowing goes into expansion. ie, this phase is characterised by positive profit and negligible or negative free cash flow. 3. Mature. Now the company has run out of expansion opportunity, so it has positive profits, positive cash flow, nice dividends. [A simplified picture of course.]
I see SGH as in a growth phase, so of course free cash flow is negative. That's a positive because it shows SGH is still expanding. The cash flow hasn't been awol or wasted, it has been used for expansion. (Pretty obvious really, looking at the Quindell deal). And the key figure in this phase is earnings per share. For SGH these are 16.2, 24.0, 30.4 over the last 3 years on your figures. To my mind, that's just brilliant. And they are expecting an additional 30% from Quindell in 2016.
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