How do you think releases of loan loss reserves would affect banks’ stock prices? That is, do you think investors consider these releases to increase the value of the firm? Why or why not? If so, how?
What financial evidence is used to argue that H.P. is struggling? What advice would you give Whitman? How would your advice manifest itself in improved financial results?
An activist investment fund has increased its ownership of Office Depot to just over 13%. Is this sufficient to exert significant influence? Control? Why would the fund focus on cutting expenses to increase profitability? How might this strategy affect future sales and profitability?
McDonald’s is opening vegetarian only restaurants in India. List as many implications as you can for the company, such as those pertaining to the supply chain, order procedures, storage, marketing, working capital, margins, etc.
If you were the CEO of Hyundai, what would you do re: worker demands? How would you determine the optimal “days sales in inventory” (DSI)? How is DSI measured?
How does Cisco’s increase of its dividend track the life cycle of a firm (intro, growth, maturity, decline)? What does the dividend increase reflect about the firm’s set of investment opportunities?
If interest rates are negative, then future values of deposits or investments are lower than present values. If this is a result, why not just hold cash?
Best Buy has become, according to some, a showroom for cybershoppers. How would taking the company private help the company implement the necessary changes?
Why do you suppose that firms in Spain and Italy have significantly “worse” working capital management compared to firms in Germany and Scandinavia? Or, do you think that the working capital practices are not necessarily “worse,” but rather just “different”? Do the differences matter? How?
Microstrategy may have been the first of the dot.com bubbles to pop when the accounting controversy became public in 2000. The CEO (Saylor) lost over $6 billion that day. Now Microstrategy is back. Most firms after such controversies and SEC investigations don’t seem to recover. Why do you think Saylor has been able to do so?
These 10 brands predicted to disappear in 2013 should have leading indicators of this happening in their financial statements. What would be examples of these indicators?
How much did P&G spend on advertising for the most recent fiscal year? On R&D? Why are these amounts not shown as line items on the income statement? Should they be? Does it matter?
Blackberry (Research in Motion) has lost almost $33 billion in market capitalization in just over one year. What are some of the ramifications of a decline of this magnitude? What are some of its causes? What would you do if you were CEO?
What kind of loan is this: amortizing, accreting, interest only? How fast is the balance changing over the past several years? Should we be concerned? What should we do, if anything?
If you are the CEO of a publicly traded company, is it important to you to woo investors to buy your firm’s stock? Why exactly? Will increasing your dividend necessarily do this?
Do you believe that the location of lease disclosures (on-balance-sheet versus off-balance-sheet) and the timing of the effects on income will result in the loss of 60,000 jobs? Why or why not?
Do stakeholders in philanthropies (i.e., the philanthropists themselves) want measurable results from their “capital”? How would you measure return on donated capital?
