A financially struggling administrative assistant needs information to help her decide whether she can return to school.
Marcy and Dan were high school sweethearts who married young and built a life together. Between Marcy's work as a waitress and Dan's as an electrician, they have raised their now-teenage children with a lot of hard work and sacrifice. While at lunch with a group of friends, Marcy hears about her friend Diane's mother, who, due to a lifetime of poor financial planning, has had to move in with Diane
This case describes the experience of five MBA students beginning their two-year residential program. The students are members of a learning team, and each is experiencing challenges orienting to the new program and to her or his teammates.
Carla Williams, the director of athletics for the University of Virginia (UVA), considered what steps the Athletics Department needed to take in the coming years to increase revenues. In 2017, UVA athletics revenues totaled approximately $100.6 million, making it the 27th-highest revenue program in the United States among schools for which this information was available (private schools did not ne
In this case, fry cook Reggie Fuller, who wants to buy a car to ensure that he can consistently get to work on time, asks his mother if she and his sister would like to chip in with him so that he can afford a new Nissan Versa, a cheaper alternative to some of the other new cars he's been looking at. Fuller's mother responds by raising scheduling concerns along with car-related costs outside of mo
This case series simulates the decision of choosing and financing a car. Reggie Fuller is a fry cook on the verge of losing his job if he keeps arriving late to work due to inconsistent public buses. Fuller's dream car, the Lincoln MKS, is priced far beyond his budget ($50,000), but Fuller wonders if he can afford other new cars like the Nissan Altima (which costs $17,445) or the Toyota Camry (whi
In September 2017, a senior portfolio manager at Portland Capital Management had all her attention focused on the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of Roku, Inc. The company had just updated its initial filing to indicate an offer price between $12 and $14, and Portland Capital Management had an opportunity to take a substantial position in that offering. She saw the upside potential in Roku'
This case continues the story of Shane and Erin as they learn about credit cards. In the A case, Shane researched credit cards and explained the fine print from the disclosures to his wife Erin, a marketing manager in a baby-formula company. The B case begins with Erin interested in choosing the best credit card that offers airline miles in order to earn a free beach trip. Three cards are presente
David Simmons is a waiter at a struggling Italian restaurant located down the block from where he lives. Money is tight for him right now, as his limited income means he lives paycheck to paycheck. However, David knows things will look up for him soon because he was recently offered a job as a bank teller across town?his first desk job.
This case helps students learn about building credit. The ca
This case follows the recently married Shane and Erin as they explore the world of credit cards. Shane, a musician with an irregular salary and a spotty job history, was raised to avoid credit by his parents who had emigrated from a communist Eastern Europe. Erin, a marketing manager in a baby-formula company, has a steady salary but knows little about credit cards. Shane offers to do some researc
This case follows dance instructor Jackie McKenzie as she struggles to properly budget her expenses needed to support life with her youngest daughter, Millie. At the checkout aisle of her local grocery store, McKenzie becomes embarrassed when she discovers she cannot afford the $150 bill. Luxury purchases such as a red dress and McKenzie's bimonthly pedicures have maxed her credit card and straine
This case follows a woman named Maria Alvarez as she explores financing options to cover costs for her young daughter's surprise respiratory illness. Alvarez has not opened a bank account since moving to the United States from the Dominican Republic two years prior and has little savings from her job. She lives paycheck to paycheck without a credit card or credit history, to her knowledge. Should
Assessing the performance of private equity (PE) investments is a challenging task. It starts with the fact that the assets are privately held and illiquid. By contrast, public equity valuations are determined in a vast open market populated largely by disinterested investors acting on publicly available information. Therefore, to make an informed assessment about PE performance, investors should
A daughter teaches her mother how to handle her finances by creating a budget.
In October 2018, Mike Bogan, CEO of LandCare USA, LLC (LandCare), a national landscape service company, reflected on the increasing challenges he faced in staffing his landscaping crews. Throughout his 30-year career, Bogan had witnessed dramatic changes in both the landscaping industry and the US workforce profile: hourly labor was more scarce and unreliable than he had ever seen it. These change
This technical note outlines the differences between financial accounting standards and tax law that affect the valuation of potential targets depending on the deal structure employed. Valuation models typically rely on financial accounting information to estimate the value of the deal; but tax laws, not financial accounting standards, affect the after-tax cash flows attributable to the deal. The
Central to a firm's long-term success, is allocating capital so that it generates economic value. The two most common decision rules based on economic value are to (i) accept proposals that have a positive net present value (NPV) when discounted at the appropriate hurdle rate or (ii) to accept proposals whose internal rate of return (IRR) exceeds the appropriate hurdle rate. Key to both rules, in
Family businesses are unique and complex; they have aspects and layers to them that are unlike any other organizations because at the root of family businesses' identities are the aspirations of both the business and the family's members, which could be at odds with one another. This note?a meta-analysis drawn from many authors' work?explores an approach that identifies ways to unify family and bu
This brief, one-page note provides multiple definitions of Lean. The purpose is to show that Lean programs can and should be addressed on multiple levels, including detailed operations, the entire value stream, and the entire organization.
For the past three months, Willy Fuller has been working as a fry cook at Hal's Café. He has no car, and due to the unpredictability of the bus service, Willy has been late to work several days. His boss has told him that if he is late again, he will be fired. Willy can't afford to lose his job. His family relies on him to pitch in $500 a month for food and household expenses, as well as $200 a mo
Christine Angelo was going to be released from prison soon, after serving a combined three-year sentence for grand larceny and a probation violation. She was nervous and sometimes overwhelmed by all the things she knew she had to do when she went home, including dealing with her probation officer, finding a job, taking care of her two small children, and paying her court fines and restitution. Man
Matthew Andrews and Elizabeth (Liz) Graham had recently graduated college and planned to get married soon. They had both accepted jobs in Washington, DC, and would be moving to Gainesville, Virginia. Matthew would be working as a software engineer with both medical and life insurance, and Liz was taking a job as an advertising agent with no benefits. Until they started their jobs, neither Matthew
Rose is a single, 35-year-old social worker from Virginia who has decided to foster two small boys, with the goal of eventually adopting them. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment, which she knows does not provide the space she needs to accommodate the boys. She has been thinking about buying a house for a while, and her decision to take in the boys is the catalyst that causes her to take the next
Marsha Alstone was fascinated with mergers and acquisitions. She had been following the news of Preferred Airline Group Corporation's (PAG's) interest in, offer for, and 100% acquisition of West Coastal Air, Inc. (WCA). When the deal closed on December 2, 2018, just a few weeks before PAG's fiscal year-end, she found herself wanting to develop, on her own, the consolidated statement of cash flows
This technical note outlines the consequences to the acquirer, target, and the target's shareholders from a basic taxable acquisition of C corporations. Specifically, asset acquisitions, stock acquisitions, and 338(g) elections are covered. A numerical example illustrates the calculation of the after-tax proceeds to the target's shareholders and the after-tax cost to the acquirer.
This technical notes discusses three basic deal structures used to acquire another corporation. Asset acquisitions, stock acquisitions, and mergers under state law are the three common legal forms discussed.
Ryan and Robert Rosen, brothers and co-owners of BootsUnlimited.com (BU) are approaching the end of their three-week experiment in testing keywords for their Google AdWords campaign, eliminating poor-performing keywords and occasionally adding new ones. Will their campaign be a success, or will they have to find some other way to market BU's boots?
Robert Rosen and his brother, Ryan, took a look at the slow pace at which the budget for their family-owned company, BootsUnlimited.com (BU), was being spent. Many of the keywords they had chosen for their Google AdWords campaign in the hopes of boosting online sales at BU, were not being clicked on. What changes did they need to make?
BootsUnlimited.com (BU) is a website offering custom-made footwear. Customers can choose from a wide variety of styles and can also create new styles based on their exact specifications. The company instructs customers on how to provide 20 different foot and calf measurements, and from those measurements, the footwear is made in a Thai production facility. BU products cater to the custom boot mark
This technical note outlines the general judicial requirements an acquisition must meet to qualify as a tax-deferred reorganization. The variation in the specific requirements that must be met to qualify for different types of tax-deferred ("A," Forward Triangular "A," Reverse Triangular "A," "B," and "C") reorganizations are addressed. Finally, the specific tax consequences to the target's shareh
Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is a holding company that invests in many diverse businesses. The most significant of those are property and casualty insurance businesses, although the company owns businesses in the railroad, utilities, energy, and finance industries as well. The case focuses on accounting for investments at Berkshire Hathaway. The company adopted the new US guid
