The owner of a lumber and building supply business is interested in finding out how much the business is worth and how to go about selling it. The business is currently enjoying considerable success and earnings are at record levels. She must decide which valuation method to choose.
The senior officers of a national office supplies manufacturer and distributor are at odds over a slow paying, and perhaps insolvent, major distributor, and what the options are to collect the account and maintain sales in the region.
An investor in General Motors Company (GM) has received the company's annual report, and is concerned with the increasing number of negative headlines in major newspapers regarding the company's business strategy and financial reporting. He must analyse GM's business and financial position and decide whether or not to sell his shares in the company. This case can be used to: facilitate a discussion about the implications of pensions on company operations and the potential burdens for corporations providing generous defined benefit plans; consider the issue of accounting for pensions and pension disclosure, including the reasonableness of assumptions and the effect on operating income; and to discuss the reasons for downgrading bonds and the implications downgrading can have on a company.
The chief financial officer of Ontario-based Bluewater Foods Corporation has just returned from a meeting with management of County Chickens Ltd., Bluewater's largest supplier of chicken breast meat and current acquisition target. The chief financial officer must put together a recommendation as to how a purchase of County might be structured and how it would affect Bluewater's financial statement.
Royal Manufacturing Inc. requires an extension of its temporary $3 million line of credit. Holdbacks on contracts and several years of losses were causing a cash flow problem. The company and the bank must now assess the company's financial needs.