Darden Case - Marriott Corporation Strategy

Reducing the big increases in owners' pay is another way Be Our Guest can improve its cash position. Ultimately, the company must devise a plan for funding its growth long term. While refinanced bank loans for now may be adequate to finance the company, it should consider raising funds, from selling equity for example. Proceeds from such a deal might be invested in a business that generates revenue during Be Our Guest's slow seasons and eases the firm's reliance on credit for working capital. The company "needs a game plan". Such an outline will forecast its financial needs and how to achieve them. It also would help Be Our Guest's principals decide to what extent they even want their business to expand. The owners say that they want to grow, but that is not necessarily always a good thing. With growth bigger problems will occur, bigger challenges will need to be faced, but at the same time bigger profits might be in place

Be Our Guest’s balance sheet shows good signs of liquidity. Current Ratios for the past four years have remained above 1 proving that the company can handle its current liabilities. The current ratios are not extremely high (19941.27, 1995- 2.17, 1996- 1.15 and 1997- 1.16), but they can cover the current liabilities. It is important to note that the company is operating on a thin line because the current assets are barely covering the current liabilities. This is particularly unpleasant because we are dealing with a company operating in a seasonal business. It is a concern that the current ratio slightly eroded after 1995, and this is primarily due to Be Our Guest converting the bank line into long term debt in

The Marriott Corporation (MC), had seen a long, successful reign in the hospitality industry until the late 1980s. An economic downturn and the 1990 real estate crash resulted in MC owning newly developed hotel properties with no potential buyers in sight and a mound of debt. During the late 1980s, MC had promised in their annual reports to sell off some of their hotel properties and reduce their burden of debt. However, the company made little progress toward fulfilling that promise. During 1992, MC realized that financial results were only slightly up from the previous year and their ability to raise funds in the capital market was severely limited. MC was left with little choice, as they had to

How does Marriott use its estimate of its cost of capital? Does this make sense?

9. What is the Cost of Debt, before and after taxes? Using the interest rate for the largest debt…cannot use the weighted interest rate for the debt since it includes capital lease obligations with no stated rate and could not find in the notes to the financials. 5.4% After tax cost is .054 x (1-.36) = 3.5%

In addition, as we are comparing the profit margin and operating profit margin, we notice that interest expense, from 2006 to 2010, consumed a relative small portion of sales proceeds comparing to 2011. In 2011, the profit margin for HH is -1.46% and the operating profit margin for HH is -0.74%. Since profit margin includes interest expense in the calculation while operating profit margin does not, we can conclude that HH has about the same amount in interest expense as the amount of operating loss before interest. This finally doubles the amount of company’s loss at the end of the cycle. This big amount of interest expense leads us to study HH’s leverage ratios.

The Warsaw Marriott case that’s assessed in this paper is a decision case where Stan Bruns (at the time general manager of the Warsaw Marriott) had to make important decisions regarding its pricing strategy and think of ways to protect Marriott’s work force from its comp set.

7. What is the cost of capital for Marriott’s contract services division? How can you estimate its equity costs without

Since its foundation in 1927 Marriott Corporation grew into one of the leading lodging and food services in the US. With three major business lines: lodging, contract services and related business, Marriott has the intention to remain a premier growth company. To achieve this goal the corporation’s strategy is to develop aggressively appropriate opportunities within their business lines. Marriott would like to be the preferred employer, the preferred provider and the most profitable company in each of the operating areas. The financial strategy includes four key elements:

Karen Daniels , president of Borders Hotel Corporation (BHC) , has to investigate three financing alternatives in order to evaluate their impacts on viability of the BHC

• What is the cost of capital for Marriott’s as a whole at the prevailing capital structure vs. at the target capital structure.

The company lost money almost every year since its leveraged buyout by Coniston Partners in 1989. The income generated was not sufficient to service the interest expenses of the company which stood at $2.62B in 1996. From Exhibit 1, we can say that interest coverage ratio computed as EBIT / Interest Expense was 1.31 in 1989 and has been decreasing over years and currently stands at 0.59. This raises a question of how the company can meet its interest payments without raising cash or selling assets.

The following case analysis portraits the use of capital asset pricing model to compute the weighted average cost of capital for Marriott and each of its divisions. The flow of events below is following a string of different evaluations, each of which is assessed separately.

In July 2002, an investment banker advising Deluxe Corporation must prepare recommendations for the company’s board of directors regarding the firm’s financial policy. Some special considerations are the mix of debt and equity, maintenance of financial flexibility, and the preservation of an investment-grade bond rating. Complicating the assessment are low growth and technological obsolescence in the firm’s core business. The purpose is to recommend an appropriate financial policy for the firm and, in support of that recommendation, to show the impact on the firm’s cost of capital, financial flexibility (i.e., unused debt capacity), bond rating, and other considerations.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation, an addition to Marriott's assets in 2011, is now an independent, publicly traded company. With Marriott's management and franchising of this new spin-off they believe this will foster growth and attract new investors. Combined with "Revenue Per Available Room" (RevPAR), another business of Marriott's, grew and helped facilitate their global growth. Core values are an important part of the business philosophy that has help propel this company in 2011. Purpose, Values, Strategy and Success Measures combined with the vision to be the #1 hospitality company in the world and leading on three success measures: Loyalty, Profitability and Growth will pave the way to success.