This case illustrates a comprehensive valuation of a firm specializing in the "speed dating" niche of the dating/entertainment industry. The founders of HurryDate, a small, privately-held firm, are considering options to fund future growth, including a full or partial sale of the firm. Students must assess the firm's strategy, the key risks and success factors associated with this industry, evaluate basic financial reports, assess the firm's past performance, estimate the firm's future performance, and make recommendations regarding the valuation of the firm. This exercise also highlights the challenges of valuing a small firm, where information and viable comparables are often limited or non-existent.
In June 2005, Eddie Bauer, the specialty apparel retailer, emerged from bankruptcy. Under the plan of reorganization former creditors converted their debt into common shares, taking 100% ownership in the reconstituted company. Large banks -- including Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase -- were among the former creditors. In October 2005, Eddie Bauer stock was selling for $24 per share. Analysts were projecting target prices ranging from $22 to $35 per share. Account managers at Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase needed to assess whether to hold or sell their shares in Eddie Bauer.
In February 2007, shareholders of Eddie Bauer, the specialty apparel retailer, were scheduled to vote on management's proposed sale of the company to two private equity firms. More than 50% of outstanding shares in Eddie Bauer needed to be voted in favor of the deal for it to be finalized. Shareholders needed to decide whether to vote for or against the proposed sale, which was fully endorsed by the board of Eddie Bauer.
The Eddie Bauer (B) case describes the events leading up to February 2007, when shareholders of Eddie Bauer, the specialty apparel retailer, were scheduled to vote on management's proposed sale of the company to two private equity firms. The Eddie Bauer (C) case describes what happened and the outlook for the retailer.
Leading index company Dow Jones recently signed a license and joint marketing agreement with Transparent Value LLC, the creator of a new fundamentals-based valuation methodology. The agreement allowed Dow Jones to offer a family of indexes based on the Transparent Value methodology. The methodology viewed stock prices as the clearest and most reliable signals of the market's expectations about a company's future performance, and employed a Reverse Discounted Cash Flow (RDCF) valuation model to calculate the revenue required to support a given stock price for a given company. Then, the methodology applied a probability that the company would achieve the needed revenues in the next 12 months, based on its recent track record. Moreover, the methodology endeavored for specificity. For example, when possible, Transparent Value strove to determine what the company needed to do in its business activities to achieve the required revenues. Called "business performance requirements," these could include the number of new store openings, or the number of product unit sales needed, as two examples. The fictitious case protagonist, a business development manager at a leading money management firm, is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) using a fundamentals-based index as the underlying index. She needs to decide whether to base her ETF products on the Dow Jones - Transparent Value indexes. The case study provides an overview of equity indexes and ETF's and a step-by-step description of Transparent Value's methodology.
The 'Dollar General Going Private' case is intended to improve students' understanding and encourage their use of financial statement analysis. The context is Dollar General Corporation's acquisition by private equity sponsor KKR, which took the company private in 2007. Although the proposed merger generated a 30% premium over the stock price at the time, and the enterprise value to EBITDA multiple was significantly higher than comparable transaction multiples in the retail industry, some shareholders claimed that the price was "grossly inadequate," making the decision whether to approve the transaction a difficult one for shareholders generally.