1. Introduction
The finance-based statement of Free Cash Flow (FCF) provides a basic tool for the valuation of a firm.
Projection of past periodic net cash flows to or from claimants provides corporate managers and investorsat-large with useful data for estimating the value of the firm and its individual investment projects. Based on
traditional financial statements and consistent with standard financial-economic methodology, the FCF
should report the periodic cash flow components generated by the firm's operations.
The positive FCF developed in this papermeasures the net periodic flow. Thismeasure differs from Jensen's
(1986) normative FCF, which seeks the firm's valuation-based optimal distribution to claim holders. It also
differs from the flow measured by the accounting-based Statement of Cash Flow (SCF) (FASB 95, 1987),
which is designed to measure the firm's liquidity, solvency, and financial flexibility and has only indirect
implications for investment and valuation (Bradbury, 2011; Kieso et al., 2010).
Note that the apparent influence of the SCF on the FCF could originate from the focus of the former
on the firm's Operating activities, which include unpaid or partially paid transactions (accrual accounts)
classified as Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts (or Notes) Payable (AP). By focusing in addition
on the periodic change in the amount of cash held by the firm, the accounting-based offset AR–
AP implicitly ignores the unique and permanent economic roles played by short-term AR vs. AP both
individually and as part of the overall sets of Current Assets (CA) vs. Current Liabilities (CL). In this respect,
the SCF approach should differ from the FCF valuation-based approach since the latter ought to
focus on the flow of financial claims facing the firm's Operations and Investment activities