Case Study: Aitken Spence PLC)

Aspire Inc. was founded in 1960; it was private not-for-profit organization serving the developmental residential and vocational needs of adults with disabilities in 2001, the organization served 781 people giving them jobs trainings and placement, counseling additionally their families was given residential services. O’Brein, the vice president of business administration planned to acquire a new building to accommodate a portion of Aspire’s growing day programs. With that, it wanted collocate their administrative offices. But the company was facing some financial issues. As a nonprofit organization, Aspire could seek financing from a commercial bank, a tax-exempt bond issuer, or a community development financial institution. Apart from

Newham Company is a publicly traded company operating in the “personal product” industry. Newham manufactures cosmetic and body-care products. These products are sold to large department chain stores, such as Target and Walmart, to be sold and distributed to the final customer. Newham’s competitors include Revlon, Inc and Avon Products, Inc. The company has had a steady growth over the past several years. Recently, there has been a change in executive management, including the CEO and CFO. The change was sparked by questionable bonus payments that were paid to the executive management team based on the company’s performance. In addition, a recent lawsuit has been filed based on claims that a new product was not properly advertised,

Whitbread Plc is known as one of the biggest hospitality company in the United Kingdom

Effective February 7, 2013, SeaBright Insurance Company (“Seabright”), a Seattle-based insurance company specializing in workers compensation, entered into run-off. In 2012, Enstar Group Limited (“Enstar”), a run-off specialist, purchased SeaBright. SeaBright continues to manage existing claims but no longer writes new or renewal business, which means that premium activity has slowed down. In 2015, a major change occurred when all of SeaBright’s net liabilities (i.e. loss reserves associated with its prior workers comp business) were shifted to an Enstar affiliate, Clarendon National Insurance Company, through a reinsurance agreement. Circumstances that led the company to run-off: SeaBright was placed into run-off driven by weakened underwriting performance associated with reserve strengthening actions for accident years 2007 through 2009, primarily related to increasing medical cost trends. Additionally, SeaBright was facing marketplace challenges associated with its geographic and coverage lines expansion. Seabright has had to deal with significant pressure from its workers comp book developing adversely year-over-year and having to liquidate investments to satisfy claims and expenses. The reinsurance contract with Clarendon did provide major relief but SeaBright still remains a going concern and without premiums coming in and asset base rapidly shrinking, its solvency status as an insurance company remains questionable. The key now is to track the level of credit risk

As the financial consultants of Catawba Industrial Company our aim is to determine the best course of action to pursue with respect to the introduction of the new proposed light weight compressor. This course of action must remain within the production capacity restrictions the company faces.

In May 2008, the AICPA’s Governing Council designated the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as the body authorized to establish international financial accounting and reporting principles under rule 202 and 203 of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. Below is an illustrative Independent Auditor’s Report on financial statements issued in conformity with IFRS.

Jabil Circuit Inc. is a publicly traded electronics and technology company who has been excused by their shareholders for insider trading by not reporting they're backdating information. Backdating is not illegal as long as it is reported but unfortunately Jabil Circuit Inc. wasn't reporting. Insider trading is “ the purchase or sale of securities on the basis of information that has not been made available to pubic” (652). With that being said Jabil Circuit Inc. was being tried for SEC rule 10b-5.

The land in Stratford is being actively traded, rather than being held for income producing

Change is a basic part of life. Leaders, whether it be the CEO of the company or you, must anticipate forces that will cause changes, identify opportunities that will require changes, react to unforeseen events that make changes imperative, and work with others to overcome the predictable reactions to change, which almost always include some amount of resistance, often to a significant degree.

1. The main criteria FEL uses to assign managers to their projects include time constraints and expertise. Clearly, managers with heavy workloads will not do as well as those without significant current time constraints. Hence, the likelihood that the work will progress smoothly under such managers is greater than otherwise. Expertise is also an important requirement to ensure that a project runs smoothly. Hence, the combination of low time constraints with the highest level of expertise appears to be a good basis for successful projects. However, one potential danger of assigning an apparently random number of managers to teams who need to work closely together could create communication problems, especially if these managers have not worked together before, or indeed if severe personality clashes occur. Hence, it might be a good idea to conduct regular assessments of the progress of the work as well as how well managers function together, particularly in a remote location such as Abu Dhabi.

Ted Baker PLC is a high-end retail company based in the UK. The company offers a large range of luxury items from clothing and accessories to bedding and crockery. In the company’s annual report (2015/16) Ted Baker present their distribution as being managed through three main channels, retail (£348.4m), wholesale (£107.7m) and licencing (£14.4m). These operations take place in a large number of stores and outlets across the United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia. Ted Baker also have a successful e-commerce business which represents 15.4% of the company’s overall retail sales and which has sites serving America and Canada as well as the UK and Europe, with a separate site also set up for Australia.

In this case study of Berkshire Industries PLC, we will be focusing on the evaluation of their new incentive system and address their potential options. This new system focuses on economic profits instead of accounting profits. To better understand the implications of the economic profit-focused system, we will perform a data analysis on the companies Snack Division. Furthermore, we will assess the negative effect this system had on their underperforming division, Spirits.

1. Evaluate the economics of Gulf's exploration and development program in net present value terms. How do Gulf's outlay for exploration and development compare to cash returns Gulf generates from these activities.

As organizations change, leadership must find ways to adapt and adjust to those changes. Many times it’s the inability of being open-minded to new ideas, beliefs, thoughts and cultures that prevent individuals from moving forward. Saner (2004) states, “Increased globalization and integration of information technology have brought about a fundamental rethinking of how to conduct business and how to lead a complex organization for continuous improvement and reinventing of the organization” (p.654). In any organization, change brings resistance, but with positive managerial and leadership skills, accepting the challenges that come with diversity such as ambiguity, complexity, resistance and confusion, will give managers the foresight to effectively and efficiently implement processes that will benefit the organization as a whole.

Marketing mix is one of the basic and the very important part of marketing plan. It includes all the elements that are important for an organization from manufacturing to sale of the product. It can be considered as the set of marketing tools that blends together to generate a marketing response in the market. Every organization uses this tool to make its marketing plan. Primarily it consists of 4P’s, but now it is extended to 7P’s of marketing. (Jain, 2013)