Diamond Chemicals PLC (A)

We evaluated our company’s position in the industry, and found ourselves in an excellent starting position to further develop our products and match them to the industry’s needs. Our market share is adequate and we can advance further with our strategy improve and reposition our products in the coming years. We have underutilized capacity, which we intend to improve, while increasing automation to reduce costs. We have plans to improve our promotion to improve product awareness and with the appropriate product lines we will increase price to improve margins and better align our high-end product image. Our current financial position is optimistic, showing our leverage (Assets/Equity) at 2.0, when our goal is to maintain 1.5-2.0 overall. By utilizing the analysis tools we are learning what elements are driving demand, how to effectively tailor our products through R&D, how best to adjust our marketing and pricing, while lowering input costs, in order to improve margins and to ensure our stakeholders are all satisfied.

Industry research shows that dip sales are growing at 10% per year. However this growth in 1985 is due to price increases throughout the industry. It is relevant to note

2. Use the projections provided in the case to compute the incremental cash flows for the PCB project. Provide a reasonable estimate for cash flows after 2009 as well.

Futronics Inc. is a $2 billion firm that sells communications services. Founded in 1937, Futronics Inc. has provided consumer products, as well as government systems and services, for well over half a century. Due to a sharp increase in competition, flattened sales, and external economic conditions, Futronics Inc. is implementing a corporate overhead reduction program. The proposal is to replace the company’s central office stores with outside vendors. The investment will cost $1,000,000 and yield incremental cash flows of $450,000 in year one (1), $350,000 in year two (2), $300,000 in year three (3), and $250,000 in year four (4). There is no salvage value of the asset, and the firm has a cost of capital of 8%. Using capital budget methods, Net Profit Value, Internal Rate of Return and Payback method, the capital investment can be appraised. Futronics Inc.

Next, the actual money that spent on this project is far exceed the budgeted amount. To date, it spent 12.55 million more than expected. However, this is not the end, there are still two testing remains incomplete which will cost company more to finish them. Regarding to each items, the item that results in the most unfavorable result is the software development that cost the company 12.90 million more to finish development. We should also notice that the items far behind the schedule are all related to the software. This tells us that the company is extremely not good at developing software. This may due to the sudden change from the medium segmentation focus to the high end products. I would initially recommend the company to have a joint venture with the other high end company to implement this project. However, as the project is almost done, the most important thing is how to promo this product that makes it profitable or at

* Diamond is the strongest natural mineral known by a man. It is a crystalline form of carbon.

In order to meet customer demands for higher product quality, to comply with federally-mandated environmental regulations, and to reduce production costs, HCC must spend $2,000,000 within the next three years to upgrade equipment. The upgrade is expected to result in production efficiencies that will lower material and labor costs by reducing defective products, process waste, in-process inventory, and production man-hours through simplified work processes. It has been over a decade since significant modifications were made to the production facilities. Those changes were mostly technical in nature and did not substantially alter work processes or reduce overall employment. The average productivity gain in the industry for the past five years has been 3% per year. Financing for the loan to purchase the equipment

In the case of Mendel Paper Company which produces four basic paper products lines at one of its plants: computer paper, napkins, place mats, and poster board. Although the plant superintendent, Marlene Herbert is pleases with increased sales he is also concerned about the costs. The superintendent is concerned with the high fixed cost of production, the increases in fixed overhead and even variable overhead. He feels that the production of place mat should be discontinued. His reason for the discontinuation is that the special printing is driving up the variable overhead to the point where the company may not find it profitable to continue with the line. After reviewing the future predictions of the

From above statement it is clear that investment is worth it because market potential is much higher then the investment made to develop this product.

The Conch Republic is an organization which produces reputable electronics is seeking to advance one of their current production lines to stay abreast to changing technology. The company is seeking to introduce a new smart phone with the hopes of boosting the company’s revenue and reputation as a smart phone producer. As a person hired to assess the financial undertaking of Conch Republic an overview of the projects planned expense must be generated. However, in order to accomplish this task a capital investment analysis must be conducted in order to determine the projects viability. This will be done by analyzing several things. Those things that must be understood are the projects payback period, the net present value (NPV), internal

How much value do you expect to be created by operating improvements and capital structure changes envisioned by CD&R?

The two plans, Sarnia 1 and Sarnia 2 are producing halobutyl and regular butyl, respectively. The newly regular butyl plant, Sarnia 2, is running at less than capacity. The plant should be able to produce 95,000 tonnes, but the actual production is only 65,000. This creates a lot of unabsorbed fixed costs and inefficiency.

Wriston’s Detroit plant is no longer a viable operation due to long-term capital underinvestment and product-process mismatch. It is recommended that the plant be phased out of operations over a five-year period with production and staff gradually shifted to a new plant to be built in the Detroit area. Further, it is also recommended that division accounting procedures and evaluation mechanisms be modified to allocate revenues/costs allowing for the synergistic benefits of Detroit’s products, and to recognize inherent manufacturing complexities, respectively. Issues Detroit’s production is unique when compared to other Wriston plants. Runs are typically lowvolume, involve significant set-up time, and vary significantly due to the sheer

That being said, we would agree with the Treasury Staff to realize inflation, but with a different method.

Being able to increase productivity and revenues has always been the greatest challenge of any manager, and the manager of RL Wolfe, a plastic pipe manufacturer, was not an exception. Because of the low-efficiency percentage RL Wolfe had in comparison to their its competitors, John Amasi, director of Production and Engineering , had no other choice then came up with a new way of improving RL Wolfe production methods.