Acquisition indebtedness includes refinanced debt to the extent the refinancing does not exceed the amount of the refinanced acquisition indebtedness.

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It can be the way a company records revenues or handles costs. (An example would be a firm that constantly claims extraordinary or one-time write-downs.) It could be that you are just not comfortable with the amount of money a company paid for an acquisition relative to the size of its balance sheet.

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These businesses were merged with Gibraltar Life, earlier this year and allowed Prudential to expand its market share in terms of new business face amount from 7.3%, per-acquisition to 10.4%, post-acquisition.

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But they still may decrease the amount of growth a big pharmaceutical firm can get through acquisition.

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We consider free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by the business that, after the acquisition of property and equipment, including information technology infrastructure and land and buildings, can be used for strategic opportunities, including investing in our business, making strategic acquisitions, and strengthening the balance sheet.

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But the mechanics of the new acquisition techniques are a doddle compared with the challenge of making sense of the vast amount of data produced.

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