Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Business valuations



Assignment:
You have been asked for your opinion as to value of Clean Bean Inc. a company that manufactures biodegradable jelly beans. The owner Mr. Barry Sanders is contemplating the sale of the business to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a CGA.
Clean Bean Inc. was established in 1995. The company started out small and eventually grew to be one of the top jelly bean manufactures in Canada. Until about 2000, sales were primarily generated by direct sales calls by the founder and sole shareholder, Barry Sanders. In 2001, the company hired some salespeople and signed on a distributor in Western Canada and then in Ontario and Quebec.
The company does not require very much in the way of capital reinvestments, as such the amortization expenses is a good indicator of capital reinvestment requirements. Mr. Sanders is the President of the company and receives a salary in line with industry standards for his duties and responsibilities. In addition to his salary, Mr. Sanders receives a bonus. He is the only employee to receive a bonus. Mr. Sander’s son, Philippe is listed as an active employee with Clean Bean. Philippe is presently in his last year of university and receives a salary of 40,000$ per year. Philippe works for Clean Bean Inc. only four months per year.
Having worked with Mr. Sanders in the past, you know that they are great at forecasting and a review of the industry discloses that the current trend in earning is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.
Other information:
- The book value of the capital assets are equal to their FMV
- The company’s average annual capital expenditures is equal to the amortization expense
- The income tax rate is assumed to be at 19 %
- Borrowing rates on bank debt is 6%
- Management Salaries (excluding bonuses) are considered to be in line with industry benchmark
- The company pays rent to a related party and the rent expenses at fair market prices
- Macroeconomic indicators as at the valuation date for the Jelly Bean Industry are:
• Industry Benchmark Current Ration is 1.25:1
• Industry Benchmark Quick Ratio is 1:00:1.00
• Average Gross Margin is 60%
• Average Net Margin is 35%
• T Bills (1 year-3 year) : 1.5%-2.0%
• Conventional Mortgage (5 year-10 year term) : 5% – 7%
• Bank Prime Rate is 3%
• Return on investment bonds: 16.3% – 17.1%
• Return on Investment on shares: 15.4%-16.6%
• Return on investment on assets: 14.4% – 16.6%
A summary of Clean Bean Inc.’s operating results and the June 30, 2013 balance sheet are shown in appendices attached
Required:
Prepare a 450-500 word memo providing Mr. Sanders with your opinion of value of his business showing all your work as support.
Clean Bean Inc.
Balance Sheet at June 30-2013
Current Assets
Accounts Receivable 615,000
Inventory 285,000
900,000
Capital assets 500,000
Total Assets 1,400,000
Liabilities and Equity
Current Liabilities
Accounts Payable 227,000
Income Taxes Payable 72,000
299,000
Shareholder’s Equity
Capital Stock 1,000
Retained Earnings 1,100,000
Total shareholders’ equity 1,101,000


Clean Bean Inc.
Historical Income Statements
For the years ended June 30,
2013 2012 2011 2010
Sales 3,900,000 3,700,000 3,400,000 3,300,000
Cost of Sales 1,774,000 1,600,000 1,530,000 1,580,000
Gross Profit 2,126,000 2,100,000 1,870,000 1,720,000
Expenses
Advertising 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000
Bad Debts 8,000 8,000 35,000 2,000
Amortization 70,000 70,000 40,000 40,000
Insurance 3,000 3,000 2,000 2,000
Light & Heat 6,000 6,000 6,000 5,000
Management Bonus 60,000 60,000 50,000 50,000
Municipal Taxes 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000
Office 20,000 20,000 15,000 14,000
Professional Fees 5,000 24,000 3,000 2,000
Repairs & Maintenance 8,000 8,000 4,000 6,000
Wages 1,500,000 1,500,000 1,300,000 1,200,000
Total Expenses 1,686,000 1,705,000 1,461,000 1,327,000
Pre tax earnings 440,000 395,000 409,000 393,000

The Darwin Eye


Background: You are a reviewer for a street magazine called The Darwin Eye. The publication is read by young people living in Darwin (aged 18-25 years old) who are looking for ideas on how to get the most out of their city.
Task: Write a 700-word review for the 23 Sept issue of The Darwin Eye.
More info: During September, try out a new experience in or around Darwin. It could be an event, film screening or gig. Or it could be something or somewhere you’ve been to before, that may have existed for a while – but that you’ve personally never tried until now (ie. jumping croc tours at Adelaide River, Berry Springs Nature Reserve, Leanyer Recreation Park or Finlay’s Joint Café near Palmerston).CLICK HERE TO GET MORE ON THIS PAPER.....
Please note: this experience MUST be new for you, otherwise it won’t be able to bring a fresh perspective to your review.
To hunt down an idea, visit tourism or ‘What’s on in Darwin’ sites/publications, such as ‘Off the Leash’.
After your experience, write a 700-word critical review.
Marking structure:
Total value 25%
————————
Quality of writing 60 (30% accuracy/grammar, 30% style)
Quality of research 15
Original thinking 20
Headline 5
Extra tips:
While experiencing your gig, tour, film, café, etc – take extensive notes as to what happens/what’s said/what you’re thinking. Trust me, you’ll forget 50% of it, otherwise.
Stick to the word limit: submissions more than 10% above or below 700 words will be penalised.
Don’t forget to include a headline.
Get organised & research your event early – in case something fall through.
Chapter 18 of Zinsser addresses how to write a good review.
Note: Darwin is a city in the northern territory of Australia

Compare and contrast


Please compare and contrast representations of the ideal /
of power across the two different cultures of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. How are powerful peoples, gods, and spaces differently represented in the
artifacts in Sculptors and walls art works? What sorts of spaces were built to ‘house’ political and religious power? What do these visual representations and architectural
spaces say about the way these two different cultures conceive of power?
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Case Study: Zipcar


Car Sharing’ Introduction
Car sharing is rapidly growing in the United States as a way of reducing the high cost of buying, insuring, garaging and maintaining a car with the added benefits of meeting urban growth needs. It’s a service that provides members with access to a fleet of vehicles on an hourly basis. Members reserve a car online or by phone, walk to the nearest parking space, open the doors with an electronic key card and drive off.
Members are billed by the hour or by a combination of an hourly rate plus mileage. Car sharing can substitute for car ownership, especially for those who can commute to work and shopping by taking transit, walking or bicycling. At the workplace, it provides access to a vehicle for business use and personal errands during the day, allowing employees to avoid driving to work  which in turn reduces traffic congestion.
Car sharing has become so popular that auto giants Hertz, Enterprise, U-Haul and Daimler have jumped into the business alongside other successful nonprofit car sharing organizations in several major cities. Some predictions place care sharing as a $1 billion industry in 10 years, with a market estimated at 2 million Americans looking for an alternative to the high costs and hassles of owning a car.
Company Introduction
Zipcar is generally credited for having proven that there was demand for car-sharing, and even for having brought the sharing economy as we know it today to the broader public.
Until earlier this year when Avis purchased Zipcar in a $500 million deal, Zipcar was the world’s leading car sharing network with more than 750,000 members and more than 11,000 vehicles in urban areas and college campuses throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Zipcar’s mission was to “enable simple and responsible urban living†. As a division of Avis, the company continues to do this by offering members affordable 24-hour access to private vehicles for short-term round-trip use, as an efficient means of complementing the public transportation network. Unlike rental cars that come with lots of extra charges, car sharing is all-inclusive. Zipcar’s rates start at $8 per hour and include gas, parking, insurance and maintenance.
Zipcar launched its first 10 locations in Boston in 2000. Since 2004, Zipcar has experienced 100-percent-plus growth annually in its membership base. In a difficult economy, car sharing rose quickly. It took 2 years to get the first 1,000 Zipcar members. Today it takes a few days.
Company Strengths
Zipcar adopted a customer-centric vision from the start. This led to bold investment decisions in technology, a member-driven user experience and a strong consumer brand.
Zipcar quickly invested in the technology to support high quality customer service and the company’s values of convenience, selection, service, and value. The online reservations, the mash-up technology that allows member to select their car based on availability in their neighborhood, the electronic keycard for secure access – all these enable a seamless user experience, as do the database management software and customer billing system that track members’ usage, rates and billing statements.
Through early consumer research, Zipcar identified the need for conveniently located clusters of cars in easily accessible garages dispersed around the city – and moved beyond using large central hubs. The company also adapted quickly to the demand for higher-end cars when the average member age started rising – and kept off the big green Zipcar logo typically displayed on the car door for this more upscale clientele. And the company added four wheel-drives and pickup trucks when it recognized the need for them.
Finally, the Zipcar brand was distinctive from other car-sharing organizations – synonymous with fun, honesty, clever innovation, and social good. It fit well a company that delivers a modern, convenient, environmentally friendly driver experience. The Zipcar brand spirit is conveyed through the unique member submitted names for each of the 9,000 vehicles in the fleet.

Key Partnerships
In order to deliver on its mission, Zipcar aggressively worked in tandem with other transportation and infrastructure providers. The company partners across the “value chain†with bike clubs, ridesharing organizations, government agencies, parking facilities, transit authorities and more. In particular, Zipcar has courted cities, businesses and college campuses to dedicate parking spots for its fleet of cars.
For example, Jim Sebastian, transportation planner for the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, says that the District wanted to promote car sharing so much, that it granted 86 valuable on-street spaces for free to Zipcar and Flexcar in 2005. The District also provided large orange poles to identify the reserved spaces and prepared car sharing brochures. And car sharing grew so much in the following years  Zipcar merged with Flexcar and has hundreds of private spaces for cars in D.C.  that now the District is looking at charging a fee for the on-street spaces.
Another example of a strong partnership would be the agreement with Ford in 2010 to introduce up to 1000 fuel-efficient vehicles floating the Zipcar logo on more than 250 university campuses throughout the U.S. The 2-year alliance established Ford as the largest automotive source in Zipcar’s University program and included offering incentives to join and use car sharing on campus to help accelerate the use of Zipcar and introduce a new generation of drivers to Ford fuel-efficient vehicles.

The Road Ahead – first Public, now Private
On June 1, 2010, Zipcar filed with the SEC to raise up to $75 million in an initial public offering. The company debuted on the NASDAQ on April 14, 2011 after raising $174 million in its IPO, more than expected. Introduced at $18 per share, the stock climbed above $29 a share within days, but the price soon started falling a trend that continued until the purchase by Avis, which worked out to be at $12.25 per share.
While Zipcar proved the demand for car-sharing, they never became a reliably profitable business. The main culprit was huge fleet costs – cars, maintenance, insurance, and parking. Acquiring customers profitably was also a challenge.

Questions
1) Summarize the Zipcar business model using the Who, What, How framework. You may want to use the Business Model canvas tool.
2)Analyze the external forces in 2000 when Zipcar was launched. Compare these to the external forces prevalent in 2013. You may want to use Porter’s Five Forces Model.
3) Was the situation more or less favorable to Zipcar and why? You could use two EFE Matrices, one grounded in 2000, the other in 2013.
-4)Based on your analysis above, what are some of the strategic challenges that the Zipcar division of Avis will face in the near future?
(Note: Zipcar and Avis are working through a lot of internal challenges tied to the integration of two very different companies and cultures, as well as the pressure of realizing operational synergies, but this assignment focuses strictly on external assessments, so no need to go into any detail on internal challenges).

industrial hygiene sampling event


Each student will research an industrial hygiene sampling event and develop a comprehensive
exposure assessment
report. Students can select from:
• Asbestos exposure from the World Trade Center disaster
In your paper, you will discuss:
• What was going on during sampling?
• What was your sampling method?
• What are your results?
You are expected to use the AIHA Statistical Spreadsheet to assist you in analyzing the data. Click
here to access the
AIHA Statistical Spreadsheet. You will also need to discuss:
• The descriptive statistics for the dataset
• The number of samples above the OEL (if any)
• What the 95th percentile exposure level would be?
• What exposure category you would put the workers' exposure into (e.g., 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4)?
You will find that each data set has a number of samples broken down into different activities.
Assume that each activity would be a different SEG. Select 1 or 2 SEGs for the purpose of your
analysis and report.
If you choose to use the World Trade Center data, you can choose from either the Lower Manhattan
Asbestos Data, or the Staten Island Asbestos Data. You can find the data at the following OSHA
website: http://www.osha.gov/nyc- disaster/wtc.html



If you choose to use the World Trade Center data, you can choose from either the Lower Manhattan
Asbestos Data, or
the Staten Island Asbestos Data. You can find the data at the following OSHA website:
http://www.osha.gov/nyc-
disaster/wtc.html




If you choose to use the Deepwater Horizon dataset, focus on the potential benzene exposure. You
will also need to select one SEG / task for the purpose of your research (e.g., boat operators,
beach cleanup). The dataset is very large and you will want to keep your research focused to a
manageable level. It would be acceptable to select a few of the SEGs for comparison. For example,
you could compare the boat operator’s exposure to that of the beach cleanup crew. You can find the
data on the OSHA website at the following address:
http://www.osha.gov/oilspills/index_sampling.html


An example report is provided to give you an idea of how to properly develop a comprehensive
written report. Your report does not have to follow this exactly; it is provided as an example
only. However, your report should address all 10 items listed above for full credit.
Click here to access the sample report.

Define the necessary components and functions of an operating system as they relate to the Kernel and the shell



Windows and Mac computer systems have one central kernel that abstracts the hardware so the operating system can manage it. Linux is more customizable because it allows you to create your own kernel. You have been hired as an IT consultant and have been asked to write a manual on the kernel distributions of Linux. This requires the following deliverables:
Define the necessary components and functions of an operating system as they relate to the Kernel and the shell.
List the 5 most common distributions (there are over 600 at present).
After choosing the kernel, the choice of a shell also needs to be made. List at least 2 shells that are available for the kernel that you have selected.
Choose one of the shells, and discuss how you can perform a minimum of 20 commands or functions.
These commands must include command-line utilities and scripting techniques for automating operating system tasks, including enterprise deployment.
Common Assessment – Bachelor of Information Technology, Version 3.0
Common Rubric Criteria for ITCO 211
Expectations: Student work at the undergraduate level is expected to focus on a broad overview of an academic discipline, along with where appropriateâ€â€
basic theoretical frameworks of professional practices and familiarity with discipline-specific tools and their application. Blooms taxonomy levels only apply for
IT content criteria. Blue color refers the basic expectation on the criterion for the assignment. Besides the five level letters, “N/A” option is also available for 1)
The student didn’t submit the work. 2) The topics in the criterion are not covered in the assignment requirements.
IT Content Criteria
IT Content Criteria Exemplary (A) Accomplished (B) Proficient (C) Partially Proficient (D) Unacceptable (F)
Blooms Taxonomy Level Analysis Application Comprehension Knowledge Knowledge
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Network
Administration
Hardware Concepts
Demonstrates full
understanding of
hardware concepts.
Hardware component
description is detailed
and correctly applied to
situation and makes use
of current resources.
Examines requirement
set and identifies
necessary network
elements. Analyzes
diagrams and other
requirement set resulting
in recommendations for
improvements.
Demonstrates sound
understanding of
hardware. Employs
network elements as
appropriate based on
requirement set.
Prepares detailed
document including
illustrated physical and
logical network design.
Demonstrates basic
understanding of
hardware concepts and
principles. Hardware
element descriptions
are summarized.
Recognizes differences
between network
elements. Selects
necessary hardware
based upon stated
requirements.
Demonstrates a lack of
understanding of
hardware concepts.
Network elements are
described briefly. Network
elements are named,
however, limited
information offered with
respect to function or
application. Student work
shows significant errors in
identification/description..
Does not demonstrate
an acceptable
understanding of
hardware. Student work
absent or completely
defective regarding
hardware component
functions or application.
Unable to adequately
describe network
hardware elements.

Araby critical analysis paper.


Write an analytical essay incorporating research and investigation of texts including close readings. Write essay in which it analyze specific texts, using primary evidence
from the text.
Write the paper as if your reader is not familiar with the story, but do not overly just summarize the plot. Although you will use some summary in your analysis, present your own interpretation using textual evidence for support. As you write, refer back to your critical argument when appropriate. Present your interpretation and try to convince your reader why your particular reading reveals an important insight about the story, one that you believe is significant. Quote briefly, but quotes should make up no more than about 15% of your paper.
Develop your major writing points (supporting arguments or claims) and select those details, passages, and/or events (the necessary textual evidence) that support your critical thesis and explain your thinking.
It’s best to summarize or paraphrase a key idea from the primary or secondary source before following with a quote to highlight your point then synthesize