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Fashion Hut is a chain of designer clothing stores. Fashion Hut's owner has received an offer for the sale of her enterprise. She must decide whether to accept the offer or continue to develop the business for possible future sale. An Excel spreadsheet is available for students to perform sensitivity analysis, product number 7B03N001, and an Excel spreadsheet that assists the instructor, product number 5B03N01.

Susan Griffin, owner and cofounder of a small manufacturing company, is formulating a long-term investment strategy. Griffin plans to sell her $10 million company and invest the revenue. She must decide how to allocate her investment so that she can rely entirely on investment income for her financial needs, while still maintaining a comfortable standard of living. In addition, Griffin wants to be able to offer financial help to her two children and her elderly mother.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 203072

Spreadsheet for case UV2479

Spreadsheet to (9-203-042). Test the impact of changes in wage rates on the value of debt and equity securities. Download only.

This case provides an ethical dilemma for a sales force. Do they look at competitive information provided by a customer under strange circumstances or not?

Spreadsheet for case UV2408

A health-care organization is seeking financing for the construction of a new long-term care facility. The project manager of the health-care centre must assess the situation qualitatively, review the statement of cash flows, prepare a projected statement, and perform ratio and collateral analysis to determine the likelihood of the organization obtaining financing.

The Western Investment Club was one of the largest student clubs at the University of Western Ontario. The club's portfolio had incurred a substantial loss over the previous year. Because of this loss, an analyst and member of the club felt a more in-depth analysis regarding the overall strategy of the portfolio was necessary. There were two strategic issues the analyst wanted to address. First she felt it was difficult to interpret the performance of the portfolio as no previous benchmark of comparison had been used. Second, she examined the composition of the portfolio over the past six years and noticed a divergence in the allocation to asset classes on an annual basis. She must determine how the allocation of assets affects the performance on the portfolio and whether or not the lack of an asset allocation strategy impedes the educational experience of the Western Investment Club members.

Presents an analysis of the decision regarding a new product introduction. The main issues for discussion are: sunk costs, incremental costs, cannibalization, shared facilities, and the treatment of inflation.

Williams, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based firm in various energy businesses, must decide whether to accept a financing package offered by Berkshire Hathaway and Lehman Brothers. The proposed one-year credit facility would provide the firm with financial resources in a difficult period.

Explicitly considers the most common propagation models for financial variables and explains how to determine the statistical properties of these variables and simulate their future values. Covers arithmetic Brownian motion, geometric Brownian motion, mean-reversion, and jump-diffusion processes. Several examples and exercises are provided from the petroleum industry.

In June 1999, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision announced plans to revise the capital standards for banks. The Basel Committee believed that project loans were significantly riskier than corporate loans and, therefore, warranted higher capital charges under the new proposal (known as Basel II). Bankers, fearing that higher capital charges would damage project lending by lowering profits and driving borrowers to nonbank competitors, formed a consortium to oppose the proposal by studying the actual default and loss characteristics of their combined portfolios of project loans. The study showed that project loans were not riskier than corporate loans. Armed with this data, the consortium sent a letter to the Basel Committee in August 2002 urging them to lower the proposed capital charges on project finance loans.

Martin Smith, a new associate at an LBO firm, must respond to a problem posed by his boss, based on an historical deal that suddenly came undone. After months of negotiation, his firm's plan to buy a bankrupt competitor of one of its portfolio companies and close it down, thus reducing capacity, was ready for board approval. Recently, not only has the market for the product improved, but management of the target firm has presented a more attractive deal to recapitalize the company. This would have disastrous results for the entire industry by perpetuating an overcapacity problem. Discusses Smith suggestions.

Mike Tarkington, a partner at Reality Venture Partners, must recommend a course of action to his colleague, Steve Bonhomme. Bonhomme is trying to decide whom he should put on the board of a company that is acquiring one of Reality's portfolio companies. Reality will own a very small portion of the merged entity, which will be headquartered in Finland, and Bonhomme is considering a host of options.

Track Concealers Company Ltd. produced valances to cover the tracks above bifold doors. When the company received a large order from a U.S. building retailer, the owner needed to quickly secure capital to fund the production commitment. Although he was able to acquire the needed financial backing through his family, the owner was uncomfortable with this arrangement. He was determined to acquire independent short-term and long-term capital for his company within six months.

Two managers attending an executive education course attempt to develop a cost of capital estimate for a leading telecommunications company. The two managers are confused about the costs of various sources of capital, the calculation of the overall corporate cost of capital, and the appropriate use of the hurdle rate. They must investigate the concept of cost of capital, review historical data on risk premiums, develop a process for estimating the various components of the cost of capital, and determine the corporate cost of capital.

The accountant for Palmer Limited, a sheet metal sub-contractor, has been asked to provide a monthly cash budget along with the projected income statement and balance sheet for her client. The request came about because the banker is concerned about whether Palmer Limited can repay its loan.

New research from MIT's Center for Information Systems Research and others reveals that successful companies are revolutionizing the way IT investments get decided. Investments are no longer justified merely on the basis of making a functional silo more profitable. Today, the strategic needs of the whole company come first. In the last 15 years, write professors Jeanne Ross of MIT's Sloan School of Management and Cynthia Beath of the University of Texas, a tidal wave of IT-enabled initiatives has elevated the importance of investing strategically. The Internet alone has created numerous opportunities: to reengineer processes, introduce online products and services, approach new customer segments, and redo business models. The opportunities seem limitless, but the resources required--capital, IT expertise, management focus, and capacity for change--are not. How to choose? Traditionally, companies justified a given project by presenting a strong business case. But with IT's growing strategic importance, companies must now weigh individual ROIs against demands for organizationwide capabilities--and must assess opportunities to leverage and improve existing systems and infrastructures, create new capabilities, and test new business models. The authors recommend a new investment approach based on a framework they developed after studying the e-business initiatives and supporting IT investments of 30 enterprises. The framework encourages simultaneous investment in four kinds of IT initiative. Transformation investments are necessary if a company's core infrastructure limits its ability to develop applications critical to long-term success. Renewal investments maintain the infrastructure's functionality and cost effectiveness. Process improvements allow business applications to leverage infrastructure by delivering short-term profitability. Experiments enable learning about opportunities and testing the capabilities of new technologies.

Air New Zealand is a national airline faced with a number of important strategic and financial issues. The company's recent acquisition of Ansett Australia had proved to be disastrous and a severe financial drain for Air New Zealand. Key issues facing Air New Zealand include the long-term strategic positioning of the business, and determining anticipated financing needs, the appropriate gearing ratio or capitalization (debt-to-equity) rate, and available sources of financing. A recent research report had summarized two fundamental questions that impacted on the company's stock price and needed to be addressed: Would the New Zealand government relax Air New Zealand's ownership restrictions in order to allow Singapore Airlines to increase its stake from 25 per cent to 49 per cent? If so, would any proposal fix Air New Zealand's balance sheet to allow Air New Zealand and Ansett to once again become viable airline competitors? Supplement to this case is Air New Zealand: The Recapitalization Decision (B), product number 902N20. .