You are a Financial Analyst for a fast growing company and the president of the company asks you to analyze the financial statements of a potential acquisition target which he/she is considering buying. In your opinion, which of the following four financial statements is the most important in your analysis and why?
The four financial statements are the balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, and statement of retained earnings.

"in my opinion, we ought to stop making our own drums and accept that outside supplier's offer," said wim niewindt, managing director of antilles refining, n.v., of aruba. "at a price of $21 per drum, we would be paying $4.70 less than it costs us to manufacture the drums in our own plant. since we use 70,000 drums a year, that would be an annual cost savings of $329,000." antilles refining's current cost to manufacture one drum is given below (based on 70,000 drums per year):