Anyone any good at reading balance sheets?

Taking a chick out for lunch, will look in later, hopefully someone can read a balance sheet.

Thanks a lot, much appreciated. :-)

Actually, they state that freehold land and buildings are stated at cost less depreciation.

I'm an accountant based in Slough

You will not be surprised to learn that there are several methods by which valuations are placed on companies.
From the information available, the only valuation that can be arrived at is the book value which, as already noted, is £100M.

The fixed assets of this particular organisation is £40.2M, valued at historical cost less deprecation.
This is in line with the accounting standards outlined in FRS 102 which are the standards under which these accounts have been prepared.

It makes use of the "going concern" concept i.e. the organizations intends to continue with its current activities.

Alternative valuation methods include the following:

Market capitalisation
This is normally the number of issued shares multiplied by the current share price.
This is not applicable for this organization.

Enterprise value
This is often used as an alternative to market capitalisation and can be viewed as the theoretical takeover value of the enterprise.
It is calculated using the formula  Enterprise value = Market capitalisation + Net debt - cash
Again, not applicable for this organization.

Multipliers
Other commonly used valuation methods include multiples of either revenue or earnings.
The multiplier to be used will be dependent on  the industry segment and the state of maturity of the organization.

Discounted cash flow
Similar to the earnings multiplier, this valuation method attempts to adjust projected future cash flows for inflation.

The valuation method that you will use for any given purpose if highly contextual.

This organisation has a straight forward balance sheet, the only item that would be subject to revision would be the fixed assets.

Insufficient details to be able to arrive at a solid conclusion, but it does appear likely that the market value of their fixed assets would struggle to match the book value should they be required to dispose of them in a short time frame.

In general, the accounts are reasonably impressive for a charity, a lot more detail than you might expect to be the case.
You could say that they are cool for cats

Any particular reason for your interest in this organization?

Thanks for all that work, Angoose. Yes, I'll be back tonight to explain. Just a bit tied up atm

I've recently got involved with two local charities and their reserves are nowhere near the value of Cats Protection.
One is £13m and the other £800k.

For your purposes, the £100M is sufficient to get a feel for the scale of Cats Protection.
Interesting to see that £31.6m of their income (46.5%) came from legacy donations.

I'm currently wrestling with the issue of charity reserves and what a responsible reserve policy should look like.

The reserve policy for Cats Protection is a bit too wooly for my liking but does help me to begin to understand how different organisations approach this tricky subject.