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Rawhide Brewery (Rawhide), a small Canadian brewery, is considering an opportunity to share its excess production capacity with another brewery, Tabby Cat Beer (Tabby). Three proposals are under consideration, each requiring a different accounting treatment by Rawhide. The first option is an arrangement under which Tabby would outsource its production to Rawhide. The second is a more complex arrangement under which both parties would invest in the common shares of a newly formed entity into which Rawhide would transfer its existing brewery operations and related debt. Because Rawhide would guarantee the debt of the new entity, it would make all key decisions. Under the third alternative, Rawhide would own 60 per cent of the common shares and Tabby would own the remaining 40 per cent, and all key decisions would be made jointly by both parties. The CFO of Rawhide has been asked to assess the accounting implications, advantages and disadvantages of the various options, taking into account the impact on Rawhide’s debt-to-equity ratio.

The case presents the opposition by a leading institutional investor in Goldman Sachs to the re-election of Jim Johnson to the board of directors of the company. The investor, Sequoia Fund, opposes the re-election citing Jim Johnson's prior track record as the CEO of Fannie Mae, which has been criticized for its role in the financial crisis and for serving on the compensation committees of two companies that experienced option backdating scandals. The case allows students to discuss issues surrounding director performance assessment, director elections, investor engagement with companies, and director reputation.

DLF was the largest real estate player in India, possessing a strong home market in Delhi and Gurgaon (the National Capital Region, NCR). The Indian real estate market was growing rapidly, and DLF wanted to convert this growth opportunity into a country-wide presence by building significant land reserves. With huge debt on its balance sheet, the company decided to raise finance through equity. The stock markets were on a rise, and the timing was perfect to raise funds from an initial public offering (IPO). The company filed its draft red herring prospectus (DHRP) in May 2006, but soon afterwards the stock market scenario changed, and the company faced complaints from its minority shareholders. The global macroeconomic scenario had become a cause of concern too. DLF was forced to withdraw its DRHP and put its IPO plans on hold. This case is positioned in January 2007, when DLF had resolved its minority shareholders’ issue and had added significant portions to its land reserves. At that juncture, DLF’s management began the process of trying to gauge the circumstances before reintroducing its decision to go public.

Katka Suvarinova, a financial analyst at Southern Cross LLC, and a recent MBA graduate, has been asked to prepare an analysis of Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation's recent financial performance, as well as an analysis of its accounting methods. Big 5 was a West Coast chain of sports equipment and apparel outlets, with 398 stores at the end of 2010. After Deutsche Bank's investment report maintained a hold rating and established a new target price of $13 per share for Big 5, Southern Cross decided to look at the company as a possible addition to its shorts portfolio. The shorts fund included companies that Southern Cross believed were headed for substantial stock price declines based on fundamental analysis. Southern Cross's portfolio manager had asked Suvarinova to pay close attention to the company's accounting methods, and particularly indicators that the company had significant off-balance sheet debt, which was not uncommon in the retailing industry. Retail companies often leased many of their stores, rather than buying the outlets with borrowed funds. From her MBA program, Suvarinova recalled that under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), some leases were not reported as debt on a company's balance sheet.

This case is designed to give students an opportunity to look at the decision points in creating a physician/hospital organization (PHO). Many of the issues are similar to those in creating an accountable care organization (ACO). There are many factors to consider: (1) how the hospital is positioned in the market, (2) why the physicians want to work with the hospital, (3)what the competition is doing with its physician/hospital integration strategy, and (4) how to analyze the external environment in the industry. The focus of the case is on how the hospital and the physicians must work together to strategically position themselves in the market.

This case illustrates the application of activity-based costing concepts to a healthcare institution. The class discussion can examine the rationale for and impact of MEEI's split-cost accounting system, and thus can demonstrate the power of an ABC approach.

This is a case about three cardiology groups that are proposing to merge. One issue is antitrust, and the benefits and motives for the proposed merger can be debated. A second issue is one of ethics. While the consultant may personally feel that the merger is not a good idea, she must satisfy her client. In addition, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) is explained and suggested as a tool to be used to define market concentrations and identify potential anticompetitive situations.

This case provides a vehicle for discussing the presentation of a nonprofit's financial statements. The presentation in the orchestra's annual report is unusual. It focuses on contribution to fixed costs from operating activities, highlighting the operating deficit and how this deficit was, or was not, made up from endowment revenue and annual fund raising. The case also includes an eight-year projection in the published financial statements, which is highly unusual.

This is a "ratio detective" case. Students must match nonprofit organizations with their corresponding financial information (contained in an exhibit). The text provides a basic description of each organization and contains sufficient hints, both direct and indirect, to allow them to make the identifications.

This case raises issues about management control in (1) a matrix organization, (2) a project-oriented organization, (3) a professional organization, and (4) a research/development organization. The focus is on a specific project, but the experience with that project can be used to generalize about management control in all the circumstances listed above.

Andrew Ferris, a financial analyst at Southern Cross Capital LLC, was asked to evaluate salesforce.com's accounting methods and recent financial performance in preparation for the portfolio manager's decision as to whether the company's common stock should be acquired for its Growth Service fund. Salesforce.com was a computer software company focused on providing customer relationship management (CRM) applications accessible by users on the "cloud," rather than through software resident on a user's own server. Salesforce.com maintained a direct sales force, which sold services to customers through phone contacts, and through a network of geographically dispersed sales representatives who made personal contacts with potential customers. The direct sales force was compensated primarily through sales commissions, which were paid in cash after a customer signed a noncancellable subscription contract. The portfolio manager specifically asked Ferris to pay close attention to understanding how salesforce.com accounted for its commission outlays, since several companies in recent years had experienced substantial declines in their stock price after financial press articles revealed that the companies had inflated their earnings by deferring expenses.

This note describes balance sheets, income statements, and statements of owners' equity and serves as an introduction to basic financial statements.

Supplements case Tanzania A

Danshui Plant No. 2 in southern China has a one-year contract with Apple Inc. to assemble 2.4 million iPhones. In the first three months of the contract, the plant is unable to assemble as many phones as expected and is operating at a loss. The plant manager must analyze the budget and prepare a summary of monthly operations to help identify the source of performance problems. The plant has had difficulty hiring enough workers despite raising wages over 30%. In addition, the assembly process for an iPhone is complicated, with 140 steps involving over 100 components. The plant manager considers whether a flexible budget would be more useful for uncovering problems than the static budget currently being used. Students must perform break-even and flexible budget analyses and calculate price and usage variances as they consider solutions for the plant's problems with the iPhone contract. This case, which explores the challenges of outsourcing manufacturing, can be used as an introduction to managerial accounting.

This case presents a 20-year history of the evolution of corporate governance and corporate reporting in South Africa starting in 1992 with a focus on the three King codes of corporate governance (King I in 1994, King II in 2000, and King III in 2009). From a reporting perspective these reforms culminated in the "apply to explain why not" mandate for integrated reporting by all companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

The case relates to understanding and comparing the performance of two leading retail companies-Ahold and Tesco. The case introduces the tools of Dupont and Modified Dupont Decomposition. While performance as measured by return on equity has been similar for the two companies, Ahold has had significantly better stock market performance compared to Tesco. Ahold also has a significant amount of cash on its balance sheet leading to low levels of net debt. The case requires students to analyze performance using Modified Dupont Decomposition techniques to assess if firm performance is resulting from operating profitability or from financial leverage and then suggest strategies to improve performance. To perform the modified Dupont Decomposition, students learn how to reformat and condense the balance sheet and income statement to separately measure profitability arising from operating activities and financing activities. Students also see how excess cash holdings can depress profitability and what factors should drive the appropriate level of leverage for a company.

The case requires students to conduct a financial analysis of BNL Stores, a retail business. Case materials include a multi-year balance sheet, an income statement and statement of cash flows data. Students will prepare and interpret selected ratios, and prepare a basic statement of cash flows.The case entails use of financial statement analysis, balance sheets and income statements to provide a complete picture of an organization's financial health. Data for the case are disguised and are drawn from the published financial statements of a major retailer that went bankrupt. The collapse of companies in similar circumstances influenced the Financial Accounting Standards Board's moves to require a statement of cash flows and was historically significant.

This case address two major issues of importance to an integrated delivery system ( IDS) in promoting goal congruence: the design of financial responsibility centers and the selection of an appropriate transfer pricing methodology. It helps students to see that, in a truly integrated IDS, treating hospitals (and other providers) as standard expense centers and using two-part transfer prices can help to improve goal congruence.

This case is useful in bringing together several different disciplines: strategy, management control, and change management. The organization was a newly formed integrated clinical enterprise that included an academic medical center, a community hospital, and a academic practice plan. It also was tied strategically and financially to a college of medicine. It was attempting to achieve clinical and financial integration between its physician practices and its provider institutions, mainly the medical center, but the effort had been compromised by a budget crisis that had had a detrimental effect on the organization, and had led to mistrust among the physicians, some of whom were considering leaving the organization.

This case provides students with an opportunity to look at both structure and process issues in a highly bureaucratic context, and to consider the appropriate balance between centralization and decentralization in a management control system. It also provides students with an opportunity to assess the value of a management control report.