Diluted Normalized Earnings Per Share

You’re in the ebola abatement business. Each year, the government spends a few bucks on you just to keep you alive as a business, in case, well, you know, a few hundred million people’s faces start melting off.

So your earnings are usually flat. But then, one year, after Miss Malaria’s high school biology class takes a field trip to study monkeys, bats, and beetles in caves in Central Ghana…well, business picks up.

So this year, with the gov having to spend a fortune on ebola abatement, you earn $9.42, and since world awareness has suddenly shot up the most popular Yahoo search term index, next year you still earn $5.17. But then things quiet down, and life goes back to normal, where your earnings are; you could plot some kind of line through them, and if someone asked you what normal earnings are in your little ebola abatement company. you could say that your normalized earnings are about $1.20.

Fortunately, making out with a Nigerian fruit bat is not normal, so...you probably don’t have to worry about contracting ebola.

Anyway, you have diluted normalized earnings—how are they diluted? The company could have a sudden bump in earnings from something like the gov spending a ton this week. It could also have earnings diluted from a need to spend more on marketing or key employees, or settling a sexual harassment suit brought by caged monkeys, etc. Yeah, you don't want one of these. It's hard enough to just make your earnings number without all the hassle from dilutive forces always at work against you.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is Fully Diluted EPS?1 Views

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Finance allah shmoop What is fully diluted e p s

00:06

or earnings per share All right This is the company

00:11

headquarters for beef in a can the meat industry's answer

00:15

too easy cheese Okay so the earnings number came in

00:18

just fine at a dollar Twelve a share It's about

00:21

what wall street was expecting But then why did the

00:24

stock sell off so hard in the aftermarket the stock

00:27

was thirty five Fifty two with the close And now

00:29

it's only thirty three Twenty Not a huge break but

00:33

well about six ish percent is six ish percent So

00:36

what gives Well the primary earnings number was good It

00:41

beat street expectations of a buck ten But the fully

00:44

diluted earnings per share Well it sucked Why Well because

00:50

the company had granted too many stock options to its

00:53

employees There's a super competitive environment in silicon valley Teo

00:57

higher beef engineers So yes in very wall street E

01:01

Irony The company in trying to be generous with its

01:05

employees and be competitive Well it killed their stock Where's

01:09

the beef indeed Well those stock option grants were in

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fact recognized by investors and those quote generous grants unquote

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Ended up costing the employees well two bucks a share

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and all the shareholders lost meaningful money is the stock

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price sagged We'll have that work What happened Well there

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are primary shares that comprise the base of a company's

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ownership They are the common shares of the company and

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actually owned that is they aren't just options So beef

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in a can has one hundred million shares outstanding of

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common shares common stock But it surprised wall street tto

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learn that the company now also had twelve million options

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outstanding and is the company earned one hundred twelve million

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dollars then yes it had net income or earnings per

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share of a dollar twelve on their primary earning things

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but they're fully diluted Earnings are divided by the hundred

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million common plus the twelve million options And that calculation

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is made by dividing one hundred twelve million in earnings

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then divided by the conveniently numbered here for this problem

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one hundred twelve million fully diluted shares and options to

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get only a dollar a share info fully diluted e

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p s Well why is that such a problem Well

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dilution is a bad thing if you're an already owning

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owner of a company Your ownership i gets spread out

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over more and more mouths That's gotta feed and well

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you get less fat So when wall street sold off

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the stock in this earning surprise the actual printed number

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was just fine It was the denominator the total dilution

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of option grants Well that's what feed up the stock

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and yeah if you're the ceo of this company you 00:02:51.11 --> [endTime] might have a beef with that

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