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Essay about Interco Business Case

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1. Assess Interco's financial performance. Why is the company a target of a hostile takeover attempt?

Interco's overall financial health is relatively healthy. It is highly-liquid as the current ratios are consistently over 3.5, showing that it has plenty of cash to cover any of its current liabilities. Its accounts receivable days indicate that in 1987 it took longer to collect on outstanding accounts while this figure would drop in 1988. The same trend follows with its inventory days, increasing in 1987 and decreasing in 1988, which would signal that its turnover was slower in 1987 and faster in 1988. The accounts payable days increased in 1987 while slightly decreasing in 1988. This is a healthy trend as Interco was able to take …show more content…

In particular, if you look at the premiums paid by Rales versus the average premiums paid, you can see that they are significantly lower (refer to appendix A).

Looking at Exhibit 11, which is a summary of comparable transactions by business segment, the offer for Interco once again fails to persuade. Looking at the average purchase price multiples of comparable transactions (refer to appendix B), it is apparent that the Rales proposal multiples are invariably lower than the industry averages. It would be in Interco's interests to divest and realize the higher earnings themselves, rather than allowing City Capital to take over at such a low offer.

3. As a member of Interco's board, which assumptions would you have questioned? Refer to Appendix B for the Wasserstein, Perella & Co valuation. As with any discounted cash flow analysis, some of the underlying assumptions made could be questioned. The projected sales growth rates and the terminal growth rate used in the analysis could be considered to be low, as Interco is known to be a growing company. The assumption that sales would only grow 7.2% over the projected timeline was a little conservative, considering that sales growth was 13.4% in 1988, even though retailers were facing a slump at the time. A 14 multiple with a 10% discount rate provides a 2.66% growth rate in

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