Background
Victoria Chemicals, a major player in the global chemical industry that supplies polypropylene, polymer that used to manufacture carpet fibers, packaging, automobile parts to the customers in Europe and the Middle East. Apart from numerous small producers, the company also receives the threats from the other seven major competitors.
The company owns two plants in Europe, one being Merseyside Works, England and Rotterdam Facility, Holland. Both plants were built in 1967 and are identical in scale and design. James Fawn, the Vice President and Manager of Intermediate Chemicals Group, is in charge of both plants.
Problems
In the year 2007, there is a drop in financial performance within the company. Earnings have dropped
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During this period, Merseyside Work’s customers will be buying products from its competitors as Rotterdam Facility will be functioning at its maximum capacity and it is not possible for them to satisfy the demand. To this point, Frank Greystock mentions that the loss of customers is only temporary.
Victoria Chemical owned tank cars that transported propylene gas from 4 refineries in England. The Transport Division that responsible for managing the tank cars, has been oversaw the movement of materials throughout the company. And therefore, the allocation of tank cars to Merseyside increased in anticipation of growth from the proposed renovation. And now, the allocation made excess capacity. The company can increase the production but they need to purchase rolling stock to support the growth in other areas and the purchase cost 2 million pounds in 2010, the depreciation is 10 years.
The Transport Division believes that the cost of tank cars should be included in initial outlay of Merseyside Works capital programme. The director of ICG sales thinks that the recession will reduce the demand for polypropylene, and thus lead to an excess supply of polypropylene. To combat this, the firm will shift capacity from Rotterdam to Merseyside, and Merseyside will cannibalize Rotterdam.
However, controller Frank Greystock refuses to believe the director of ICG Sales, and therefore did not included charges for loss of the business in analysis.
Production line workers are the employees who are usually doing their work by hand or in this day and age, running the machine or equipment to make the products. In this particular case, Canada Chemicals Corporation utilizes their production employees by producing industrial chemicals. These production worker’s jobs are a lot more complete then other production level workers employees as they usually have plenty of skill, knowledge and experience, and have high educational background. In order to reverse recent challenges with production and sales, I have composed a compensation package for these employees that will motivate them intrinsically, and focus on rewards that are extrinsic.
As Motorking Corporation considers introducing its now “gas extender” product into the market, the management must consider various factors to determine if this is a good financial move. The production manager needs to determine if the product will generate a profit for the corporation, how much product is expected to sell to determine how much to produce and how much to outsource.
While valves and pumps are commodity products, flow controllers are highly customized products that require more detailed manufacturing, whereas pumps and valves can be manufactured in an “assembly-line” style. As Exhibit 4 shows, flow controllers have substantially more production runs, shipments, and engineering work than valves and pumps, despite having the least production and machine hours per work. The large number of production runs and hours of engineering work are due to the unique nature of each product, requiring more detailed engineering and different components for each product. Since each flow controller is relatively unique, it is more difficult for Wilkerson to ship in bulk, which explains the fact that over 70% of Wilkerson’s total shipments are allocated to flow controllers. Despite all this, Wilkerson maintains a healthy 41% gross margin on flow controllers, even after raising prices by 10% of the target price. This is likely due to either a high-quality product relative to its competitors, or the standard unit cost of flow controllers being
The loss of jobs can have a devastating impact on a community and on the morale of remaining employees. From a financial perspective, closing a division that is reporting losses will not necessarily increase the reported net income of the company. The reason: if fixed costs that have been allocated to a division that is
its newest and most advanced plant. The main components plant was located in the German town of
business is doing financially. The net income of the company will affect the financial position of
A poor financial performance reflects BlackBerry Company is going down. In the article of “Company Overview”, the author stated a SWOT analysis of BlackBerry. In the weaknesses of company, the author described the revenues decreased primarily due to lower shipment volumes and lower average selling prices of hardware products. The company’s revenues declined from $19,907 million in FY2011 to $11,073 million in FY 2013. (p.6) Continuous decline impacts the company’s profits and margins. In 2013, RIM recorded the operating loss of $1,235 million compared with operation profit of $1,497 million and $4,636 million in 2012 and 2011. It also suffers a decline in the cash position which from $4,009
1. What is the competitive situation faced by Wilkerson? The critical product in term of market competition is the pumps of Wilkerson Company. The pumps are Wilkersons major product line with a production of about 12,500 units per month. Pumps currently have the lowest gross margin among all products, because competitors had been reducing prices on pumps and Wilkerson adopted its prices in order to remain competitive and to maintain the volume. 2. Given some apparent problems with Wilkersons cost system, should executives abandon overhead assignment to products entirely by adopting a contribution margin approach in which manufacturing overhead is treated as a period expense? Our conclusion is, that they should not adopt
The company reported a loss in net revenue for FY2015 was 19.1 million compared to FY2014 which was 19.2 million. Following the decline in revenue net income
The Standard Oil Trust of Ohio was and American oil producing, refining, and transporting company. It was founded in 1863 by John D. Rockefeller and lasted until 1911. During 1868, Rockefeller expanded the oil company to become the largest oil refining company in the world. In 1870, the company was renamed Standard Oil Company. After it was renamed, Rockefeller purchased most of the oil companies that were currently in business to make one large company.
This indicates a risk for a potential investor, as there is not enough substantiating information detailing the previous fiscal years’ performances and whether there is a trend of net income or net loss percentage from year to year (Harrison, Horngren, Lemon, & Seguin, 2014, pg. 24).
Because they have faced cash shortage trouble. Their profitability has grown for 1993 ~ 1995 period, as we can see from their I/S (e.g. Sales and Net Income, etc.). However, as its business size grows, their A/R increased, which means that it is getting difficult to collect cash. On the other hand, A/P decreased for the same period, which means that the company paid cash for A/P, resulting in critical cash shortage. Furthermore, the A/P payment period is shorter than A/R collection periods, the company’s cash problem happens to be accelerated.
As a world wide major competitor in the chemical industry, Victoria Chemicals is a leading producer of polypropylene, a polymer that is used in a variety of products around the globe. Polypropylene is known for its strength and malleability and was priced as a commodity. The company operates two plants that produce polypropylene, one at Merseyside, England and the other at Rotterdam, Holland. Both plants were identical in scale, design, and age. However, Morris Greystock, the manager for the Merseyside plant saw a decline in the company’s stock, and decided to improve the position of the company. To do that, she came up with a project to increase production efficiency, rationalize the
The yearly shareholder equity increase suggest the organization was holding onto their profits for future business operations, but in 2016, shareholder equity decreased following a reduction in the firm’s assets (Motley Fool, n.d.). Lastly, the statement of cash flow shows net income volatility for NBL during these five years. The most distinct change in net income occurred between 2014 and 2015, where net income dropped from $1,214 to $(2,441) (Noble Energy Inc., 2017a). Though NBL still recorded a negative net income in 2016, this loss was an improvement from previous year. Due to the fact shareholder compensation correlates to a company’s net income, Nobles net income loss indicates that future dividend payouts will be negatively affected (InvestingAnswers, n.d.). As a result, the industry downturn is evident in Noble Energy’s financial performance in 2015 and