Del Monte Lbo

Maple Leaf Foods (MLF), a result of many mergers and amalgamations, has been in Canada for over 100 years. Its operations focus on three core areas: meat products, agribusiness and bakery products. The meat product group is the largest, with sales to about $2.5 billion in 2000. Each business is made up of independent operating companies (IOCs), with each IOC run by a president and encouraged to follow a common set of values. Efforts are underway to optimize vertical coordination of the IOCs. A major concern for the meat product division is the loss of market share in the hot dog industry where average price per kilo is increasing

The stock market has increased from 1.896 in ’86 to 4.789 in ’95 thus creating an incentive for DLJ to offer an IPO. Strategy involved being the IPO allowed employees to exchange their compensation plans for shares and options in DLJ thus giving them an incentive to stay with the company. There were also many advantages and disadvantages related to DLJ going public. Advantages included DLJ increasing liquidity and allowing founders to harvest their wealth, permitting founders to diversify, facilitated raising new corporate cash, established value for the firm, and increasing the potential markets. Disadvantages included the cost of reporting, new disclosure requirements, self-dealings, a possibility of inactive markets reducing price, the firm losing some of its control, and a higher degree of investor relations had to be maintained.

To judge if a company is a good LBO candidate the following are very important factors: low levels of debt in the target, stable cash flows, excess cash on-hand, assets that can be used as collateral to raise debt and no major capital requirements to keep the business running on an on-going basis. Congoleum is an ideal LBO candidate because:

LM may see a reduction in costs and an increase in sales (operating economies). LM is currently under pressure to reduce its costs. In 2005, over half of LM’s revenues came from the Department of Defense and only 15% came for international markets. They are relying heavily on the Department of Defense for sales and, by acquiring NSI (thereby getting access to a new customer base), they will be able leverage their expertise and realize higher growth.

Our recommendation is to take Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) private through a private equity buyout. After doing so, we recommend implementing a centralized management structure and recruiting retail-savvy executives for the upper management team. We then recommend focusing on increasing value by capitalizing on SHLD’s real estate holdings through leasing agreements and increasing partnerships with complementary enterprises. Also, we recommend improving employee retention rates and retaining exclusive rights to private brands. Finally, we recommend focusing on a long-term strategy to continue to maximize SHLD’s ecommerce platforms. We believe these recommendations will lead to long-term stability through increases in customer base and

Representatives have approached breeder’s Own Pet Foods, Inc. from Marketing Momentum Unlimited, a marketing and advertising consulting firm. The reason for the meeting was to discuss the company’s possible entry into the retail branded dog food market in the Boston market.

An analysis of a repurchase of stock for $400 million cash, and recapitalization to 80% debt-to-total capital by borrowing $1.27 million reveals that BBBYs return on equity will be 113%, return on assets 61% and an after tax cost of debt of 28%. ROE is > ROA and ROA > after tax cost of debt. With the 80% debt-to-total capital structure ROE exceeds the other two capital structure scenarios of no debt and 40% debt-to-total capital. While all of this looks great there are other considerations. The household and personal products industries debt to total asset ratio is 34.69% while BBBY debt to total asset ratio is at 44% ($1,270,000/$2,865,023). Increasing to this capital structure would also reduce shareholders earnings per share.

Breeder’s Own Pet Foods, Inc. proposes to adopt a market penetration strategy due to having identified a growth opportunity in the dog food market, for its nutritionally balanced, high quality dog food brand, Breeder’s Mix. This premium product has been sold traditionally, to the show dog kennel market, but company executives are now convinced it can be repackaged and offered as a frozen premium product, to picky pet owners via general retail distribution channels. Since the product is considered premium, it should fetch premium prices because of its ingredients and its claimed benefits to

The over-arching problem that Breeder’s Own Pet Foods has is which marketing-strategy would best serve as a vehicle for entry into the dog food retail business. Additionally, it has to select the most prominent geographic location (s) for distribution of its product. Another root problem component is how to get the supermarkets to stock and distribute this dog food since it is in the frozen category and may not appeal to traditional dog food buyers because they don’t readily associate dog food with frozen goods.

Once the goal of corporations became maximizing the value of the firm, they attracted wealthy “corporate raiders”, who used this new corporate philosophy to launch many takeover attempts on companies, with the intent on restructuring these companies, as to increase their stock prices, so that they can “refloat” them for a considerable profit. Most of these takeovers were financed with borrowed money, hence the term lever­aged buyouts, or LBOs. As the article states, “In a typical LBO, the acquirer would buy out the public stockholders and run the com­pany as a private concern, slashing costs and slimming it down. The ultimate aim was to refloat the company on the stock market at a higher valuation”. Initially this was seen as one of the best remedies for the agency issues that surfaced between shareholders and mangers. However as the economic climate changed, many realized that the LBO was not the answer. “When the economy went into a reces­sion during the early nineteen nineties, many of the firms that had gone private, such as Macy’s and Revco, couldn’t keep up their interest

To judge if a company is a good LBO candidate the following are very important factors: low levels of debt in the target, stable cash flows, excess cash on-hand, assets that can be used as collateral to raise debt and no major capital requirements to keep the business running on an on-going basis. Congoleum is an ideal LBO candidate because:

By divesting IPD, Nova could focus on its specialty chemicals business, which would experience heavy investments and rapid growth in the coming years. While specialty chemicals may need to now source raw material from the market instead of IPD it maybe for the better since IPD was operating at a cost disadvantage. Our calculations also show that the rest of Nova, namely LPD and EPD, could do much better without IPD. The combination of LPD and EPD could be worth $920 million, according to projected cash flows derived from the pro forma income statement. If this value were realized, the value/sales ratio would be 2.5, which is much higher than the industry average of 0.7. The combination of LPD and EPD could be a star in the market!

The unhealthy financial state of the company could be due to the split from the monopoly. Round 0 financial statements demonstrate last year’s results. The company should look into the future because there is room for growth and financial success. For instance, the company can decide to take long term debt to invest it back into the company. The company can also focus drastically on sales to increase their customer base and obtain a higher market share. If the company takes the right direction of growth, it will quickly become a healthier

Caninantics’s mission is to be the leader in introducing innovative, dog food dispensing product to the market. Through close customer contact and excellent relationships, Caninantics, will meet the needs of the customers. Caninantics, LLC, is a privately-held corporation and maintains an office and a small warehouse in a mixed-use area of North Beach. Three of the four investors in the company have full operational responsibility, the co-founders, have both entrepreneurial and industry experience to brings operational management, marketing, and financial skills

packaged meat items, such as hot dogs, bologna, and sausage. Due to increased costs in