Evaluation of Grow th of Agricultural Listed Companies Based on AHP Weighting Method

Hong LU，Yan CHENG*，Huan GAO ，Changhai ZHOU，Qinqin WANG

1.School of Finance and Economics，Chongqing Three Georges University，Chongqing404020，China；2.School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering，Chongqing Three Georges University，Chongqing 404100，China

1 Introduction

Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy，and the rapid development of agriculture is related to long-term stable development of society and the economy.As of April1，2013，a total of 40 A-share agricultural listed companies covered farming，forestry，animal husbandry，and fisheries.Agricultural listed company as an agricultural enterprise＂leader＂，whose growth is related to the development of the agricultural sector and policies，so the study of the growth of agricultural listed companies is particularly important.This paper uses AHP weighting method to evaluate 2012 financial data on the growth of agricultural listed companies.

2 Study design

2.1 Sample selection and data sourcesChina Securities Regulatory Commission promulgatedListed Company Industry Classification Guideline（2012 Revision），and China Securities Regulatory Commission released 2013 first quarter results of listed companies in the industry classification on April1，2013.This paper selects 40 animal husbandry and fishery listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Securities Exchange as the initial samples，13 of which is related to farming，5 of which is related to forestry，11 of which is related to animal husbandry，and 10 of which is related to fisheries.We finally get37 valid sample companies after excluding B-share listed companies.In this paper，we use cross sectional data in 2012，the data from Sina Finance website，and additional data from Securities Star website.

2.2 Indicator selectionEvaluation of growth is closely related to the selected indicators.If the selected indicators aremore theoretical，the growth will be truly reflected.However，there is an overlap which is not conducive to fair assessment between growth indicators，so based on previous studies and relevant principles，this paper selects profitability，solvency，operational capability and developmental capacity concerning five listed companies to evaluate agricultural growth.The profitability indicator includes return on assets，rate of return on net assets and earnings per share；solvency includes current ratio，quick ratio and debt ratio；operational capability includes total asset turnover，inventory turnover and receivable turnover ratio；developmental capacity includes main business revenue growth，net asset growth and net profit growth；ability to get cash is the ratio of operating cash flow per share and sales of cash.A total of14 indicators are selected，as shown in Table 1.

2.3 Research methodsIn this paper，AHP weighting method is used for evaluating the growth of agricultural listed companies.AHP weighting method combines the two methods of analytic hierarchy process and variance weighting method.The principles of AHP evaluation objectives are broken down into hierarchical structure of the evaluation system，and we use variance weighting method to seek a comprehensive weight evaluation method for the evaluation of the target.This approach not only makes up for the defect of AHP that many indicators in the evaluation need to pass an one-time test，but also solves the shortcoming of variance weighting method that the subjective requirements are ignored，so that the evaluation results more accurately reflect the evaluation object，and the calculation is simple.The calculation is based on various financial indicators of listed companies.In indicator layer，current ratio，quick ratio and assets and liabilities are modest targets，and others are positive indicators.We first useZi＝｛max｜Zi－S｜｝－｜Zi－S｜for calculation.Ziis the positive indicator of an appropriate treatment and S is the theoretical optimal value.Current ratio，quick ratio and the theoretical optimal value of assets and liabilities used in this paper are 2，1，and 50%，respectively.Then all the indicators are normalized.

3 Evaluation of grow th of agricultural listed companies

3.1 Construction of hierarchical grow th structure model ofagricultural listed companiesThe aim of this paper is to evaluate the target layerX，namely the growth of agricultural listed companies；Y1，Y2，Y3，Y4andY5are profitability，solvency，operational capability，developmental capacity and the ability to be present in the criterion layer，respectively.14 financial indicators are selected respectively corresponding to each evaluation criterion layer.The structured hierarchical model is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Hierarchical grow th structure model of agricultural listed companies

3.2 Analytic hierarchy weight calculation The expert score is used for calculating the pairwise comparison betweenY4andY5and structured judgment matrix in each criteria layerY1，Y2，Y3，and seeking judgment matrix characteristic root.We first calculate the overall weight of objective criteria layerαi.The results are shown in Table 2.AHP further test results are as follows：λmax＝5.1863，CI＝0.04668，RI＝1.12，CR ＝0.0416＜0.1，passing the consistency test，indicating that the results are reasonable and credible.

Table 2 X－Y judgment matrix and weight

3.3 WeightingBy the mean and variance of various indicators obtained，the weighting is carried out before further decentralization.The results are shown in Table 3.The overall goal weight and weight of each indicator is further derived.

Table 3 Weighting of indicator layer and criteria layer

3.4 Calculation of composite scoreBased on the hierarchical analysis and weighting，we get the composite score value of growth of agricultural listed companies in descending order，as shown in Table 4.

Table 4 Composite score value of grow th of agricultural listed companies

4 Conclusions

Agriculture is the foundation of national economy，and agricultural development is related to the rapid development of long-term stability of the society and economy.Agriculture includes farming，forestry，animal husbandry，and fisheries.Agricultural listed company as an agricultural enterprise＂leader＂，which directly affects the development of the entire growth of the agricultural industry development and policy，so the study of agricultural listed company＇s growth is particularly important.This paper uses AHP weighting method to evaluate 2012 financial data on the growth of agricultural listed companies.From the ranking of growth value of the 37 agricultural listed companies covering farming，forestry，animal husbandry and fisheries，it is found that among top 10 companies，4 are related to farming，accounting for30.8%of farming classes，4 are related to animal husbandry，accounting for 36.7%of animal husbandry classes，and 2 are related to fishery，accounting for 22.2%of fishery classes.Animal husbandry，farming and fishery show good growth momentum，but there are differences in the growth of listed companies between different areas.

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