The exercise offers students an intriguing learning scenario, involving analysis of the financial statements of 13 anonymized but well-known companies from diverse industries and sectors using financial ratios to eventually identify them. All 13 companies in the exercise are listed on the National Stock Exchange of India and were selected using National Industrial Classification codes. Moreover, the selected companies are taken from the top three firms in terms of market capitalization within each industry sector. The exercise provides financial data from the balance sheets and income statements of the 13 anonymized companies. Students are required to first categorize the anonymized companies into broad sectors and then identify their specific industry. Last, students are asked to identify the names of the anonymized companies. The sample has been divided into two categories: a training set and a testing set. Students should use the training set to develop a blueprint (a set of procedures) to identify the companies based on the sectoral and industrial characteristics reflected in their financial statements. They should then validate the blueprint by applying it to determine the identity of the companies in the testing set.
In 2021, an investment management firm analyst needed to convince his portfolio manager that technology companies such as Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon) could have a strong investment thesis since they improved upon existing business models. To make his argument, he used financial ratio analysis to compare one of the portfolio manager's favourite companies, Walmart Inc. (Walmart), with a more technologically focused competitor in the retail space, Amazon. By analyzing the two companies using ratio analysis to highlight their similarities, the analyst sought to show his portfolio manager that Amazon was not only a technology company, but a better version of Walmart.
April 2023: Case (B) primarily discusses LUSTER 's finance-business integration reform: upgrading digital management systems, building data analysis and financial forecasting systems, and strengthening performance evaluation. At the end of Case (B), CFO Gu Baoxing proposed an internal marketization plan: each division would be able to dismantle barriers and share customers, while each product line and sales team could collaborate across divisions to discover the most advantageous partnerships. However, employees were resistant to the reform plan. Students are expected to assess whether LUSTER has the foundation for internal marketization based on the information in Case (B), and to suggest corresponding financial tools if necessary. This is a supplement to LUSTER: The Strategy of Value First (A), product # W37053.
In December 2019, LUSTER LightTech Co., Ltd. was a company in the field of machine vision. As the business was rapidly developing, the founder, Yao Yi, realized that the company’s research and development directions were very scattered, and some projects with heavy investments might not be profitable. After reviewing the existing business, the chief financial officer, Gu Baoxing, proposed a "focus" plan, in which the company should concentrate on core customers in key industries or standardized core products, based on financial sustainability and profitability as the main criteria. In Case (A), students are required to use management accounting knowledge to assist the company in making business choices and strategic decisions.
Trina Wolfson incorporated her business, Tartan Loungewear (Tartan), on June 1, 2022. The business sold trendy loungewear with tartan accents. After Tartan’s first year of operations, she and her friend, an accountant, were working together to record all accounting transactions and prepare financial statements for the year.
In March 2022, Jack Jelinek and Mikey Woolfson, co-founders and co-owners of CRANK Lite Bev Corp (Crank), were considering whether they should sell their beer (Crank Lite Lager) at the Northern Heat Rib Series (Ribfest). As an Oakville, Ontario-based brewery startup that launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, Crank had already taken on a large amount of risk, and Jelinek and Woolfson were unsure of whether they could afford to take on additional risk. However, they wished to continue growing their business to eventually get acquired by another company. Jelinek and Woolfson wanted to determine whether the Ribfest opportunity made sense from a qualitative and quantitative perspective.
As Louise Bernard grew her entrepreneurial venture, Heeling Custom Athletic Shoes (Heeling), she wanted to ensure that she was managing her cash flow prudently to make sure the company was well positioned for future success and growth. Heeling’s business model was to manufacture and sell custom athletic shoes for a variety of sports that provided customers with the perfect fit as well as personalized style and exceptional performance.
The accounts manager at the Commercial Bank of Canada, was reviewing a loan application from Pasquale’s Pizzeria, located in Sarnia, Ontario. The business owner was ready to expand his family’s business to London, Ontario, having requested a $300,000 long-term loan to finance the renovations and equipment to begin operations in London. They also requested a $20,000 line of credit to help fund the day-to-day operations of the business. The restaurant had never requested a loan of such magnitude, nor had the business undergone an expansion in its lifetime. With COVID-19 changing the food delivery landscape, the accounts manager was confident in his ability assess whether or not Pasquale’s was ready to take on this expansion plan.
This technical note provides the foundation for a discussion of the measurement and accounting for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It provides an executive-level summary organized around there questions: (1) How are GHG emissions measured? (2) What are the options for disclosing GHG emissions? (3) What are the options for managing and communicating emissions targets?
The case focuses on the required financing for a new building for Wabanaki Maple, founded by Jolene Johnson and located in Tobique, New Brunswick, Canada. Johnson had to prepare financial information in advance of a meeting with an economic development officer from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) from which she was seeking a loan. ACOA had unique lending programs with more favourable terms (e.g., interest-free, non-repayable loans) for Indigenous businesses. To prepare for the meeting, Johnson had to evaluate the impact of Wabanaki Maple’s production capacity, as it could limit sales growth potential in the near future; assess changes in customer type (e.g., boutique store, big-box retailers) including the impact of cultural priorities and awareness; determine improvements in inventory management; and assess the firm’s ability to pay for financing while generating profits.
The case focuses on the required financing for a new building for Wabanaki Maple, founded by Jolene Johnson and located in Tobique, New Brunswick, Canada. Johnson had to prepare financial information in advance of a meeting with an economic development officer from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) from which she was seeking a loan. ACOA had unique lending programs with more favourable terms (e.g., interest-free, non-repayable loans) for Indigenous businesses. To prepare for the meeting, Johnson had to evaluate the impact of Wabanaki Maple's production capacity, as it could limit sales growth potential in the near future; assess changes in customer type (e.g., boutique store, big-box retailers) including the impact of cultural priorities and awareness; determine improvements in inventory management; and assess the firm's ability to pay for financing while generating profits.
Revlon India was founded as a joint venture in 1995, pairing the industrial conglomerate UMG with the global beauty brand Revlon, Inc. to bring international color cosmetics to India. After growing rapidly and pioneering the Beauty Advisor (BA) model in India, the company began to struggle in the 2010s as it faced challenges in its sales and supply chain operations and started to lose touch with the market, all while competition rose, with new companies leveraging e-commerce platforms and international brands entering the market. In November 2023, Meghna Modi was tapped to turnaround the struggling venture. In the 5 months since her appointment, Modi had made enormous strides. She reorganized the head office, broke down silos in the sales organization, and reengaged with Revlon India's BAs. She completely revamped the company's e-commerce team, and began to collect data to understand its supply chain deficiencies. Modi also aimed to foster more accountability and learning in the company. Towards this end, she developed a Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to articulate and evaluate Revlon India's business model. However, this unearthed a significant tradeoff between the company's online and offline operations. With pressure to breakeven by the end of 2024, Modi had to decide how to manage this tradeoff. Should the company emphasize either online or offline? Should it integrate them, or differentiate them? And how could the BSC be used to test potential solutions?
Nordipack A/S, a Danish packaging manufacturer, has been facing financial difficulties with declining profits and modest revenue growth and the family-owned business was recently forced to let the private equity firm Tora PE Partners invest in the firm to raise new capital and to help turn the negative financial performance around. After Tora PE Partners acquired a stake in Nordipack, the PE fund initiated a major restructuring, including appointing a new CEO and CFO. The new CFO, Alex Pontoppidan, is tasked with creating financial transparency across product markets, regions, and customers to inform the future strategic direction of Nordipack.
This short, engaging case challenges students to review a series of corporate financial metrics and match them to one of 13 listed industries. As such, students are to use their intuition and common sense pertaining to the distinctive characteristics of, and the key differences between, the 13 industries and then identify the financial metrics that are most indicative of those traits. The 2023 version of this case replaces several of the companies used in the 2021 version. Over the years, various versions of this case have been used at Darden in the full-time MBA program as well as in our EMBA and Executive Education programs. It is also appropriate for undergraduate courses in finance and accounting.
On September 5, 2023, Luke Hayes, owner of Hayes Public Relations (HPR) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was reviewing the company’s financial performance for its seventh fiscal year. Having already reviewed the company’s operating decisions for the previous fiscal year, Hayes was now preparing to review the company’s financing and investing transactions for the fiscal year ending August 31, 2023.