The Sunbeam Board Of Directors

Earlier in his career, Jim was a controversial figure among investors and financial analysts on Wall Street. They blamed Jim for being too generous towards Costco’s employees and not bringing immediate profit to the shareholders1. But after weathering the recession and retaining a return rate of over 10 percent, Jim Sinegal is now revered on Wall Street. His ideology of building a long-lasting company has been successful. Additionally, during the recession, unlike other CEO’s, Jim implemented policies that prevented lay-offs and, in the process, managed to keep Costco’s balance statement in the black. He used strategies such as establishing a strong identity for their private-label offerings. For example, after the economic meltdown, Kirkland Signatures (Costco’s private label) was able to provide customers with a low cost alternative while maintaining the quality they were accustomed to.

In March of 2012 Steve Parkland was hired as the new president at Charles Chocolates. He was immediately faced with numerous decisions about the future of the company. The board of directors had tasked Parkland with doubling or tripling the size of the company over the next decade, but the board and the senior management team had different opinions about the strategy that would accomplish this goal. The main issues that Parkland faced were how to increase the company’s operations while maintaining the traditional culture and support of the board.

1. Consider Dunlap’s statement on page 3 of the case: “Stakeholders! Every time I hear the word, I ask how much did they pay for their stake? There is only one constituency I am concerned about and that is the shareholder primacy? Do you agree or disagree with Dunlap’s view of shareholder primacy? Explain

The following pages focus on providing a strategic analysis of Sears Holding Corporation. The introduction reveals the issues that the paper addresses. The Company Presentation section reveals important facts in Sears' evolution. The Strategy Debates Section discusses theoretical issues applied to the situation of Sears. This is followed by the Strategic Decisions section that provides a series of recommendations that can help Sears improve its situation. The Implementation Challenges section provides important issues that can be considered challenges of strategic implementation.

This company in recent past was floundering under a leadership and management style that had become bloated and unproductive. The board of directors had swelled to more than 50 members with no clear lines of communication between the board, the CEO, and management. This created a void as directives and tasks became poorly understood and remained unfinished. The goals of

The first section of this essay focuses on the possible causes of corporate failures including dominant CEO, poor strategy decision and the failure of internal control. Secondly, it discusses how the third edition of corporate governance principles and recommendations could be applied to prevent the causes of the failure. The 1st, 2nd, and 7th principles along with specific recommendations will be mentioned in this section. However, the context is concerned solely with the causes stemming from Dick Smith itself.

From my perspective, Sunbeam’s board made a wise decision in firing Al Dunlap, and it was an example of effective corporate governance as the decision stopped Dunlap to further impair tone at the top in Sunbeam and further generate agency cost within Sunbeam. According to SEC litigation release No. 17001, during Dunlap’s tenure in Sunbeam, Dunlap was involved in applying improper earning management such as channel stuffing and “cookie jar”

Through out his tenure at Sunbeam,Al Dunlap’s advocated profit by firing many employees and shutting down many factories.If we look at it in the short term ,this approach seems very attractive as it brings in quick short term

In 1997, Dunlap fired thousands of employees, shut down factories and warehouses, and streamlined the company by eliminating products and selling businesses unrelated to its core products. He attained his objective and made profit for shareholders. However, the wealth did not last. In April 1998, Sunbeam announced a first-quarter loss,

The proposed sale of Hershey Foods Corporation (HFC) during the summer of 2002 captured headlines and imaginations. After all, Hershey was an American icon, and when the company’s largest shareholder, the Hershey Trust Company (HSY), asked HFC management to explore a sale, the story drew national and international attention. The company’s unusual governance structure put the Hershey Trust’s board in the difficult position of making both an economic and a governance decision. On the one hand, the board faced a challenging economic decision that centered on determining whether the solicited bids provided a fair premium for HFC

However the author emphasizes that the issue actually is the other way around that the shareholder value principle has not betrayed the management rather it is the management that has betrayed the principle. In basic, delivering value to the shareholders means that the organization has been able to grow the earnings, the dividends of the organization and the share price. Thus in analyzing the delivery of shareholder value by Wal-Mart these three elements will be focused upon.

In the summer of 2008, InBev NV, a Belgian-based brewing company formed from the merger of InterBrew and AmBev, offered a bid of $46.6 billion to acquire Anheuser-Busch Co to create the world’s largest brewing company at $65 a share. The initial offer was subsequently declined in part because the company felt the offer undervalued the company greatly. InBev later increased their offer to $70 a share and in Mid-July, Anheuser-Busch accepted the offer making the total cost of the deal $54.8 billion dollars. The issue then becomes whether the offer of $70 is justifiable to InBev’s shareholders. The merger brings about two different management styles. The culture at InBev focused on extreme cost-cutting measures and profitable incentive-based compensation programs. However, Anheuser-Busch’s culture differed in that they prided itself on philanthropy, diversity, and community involvement. In addition, this company possessed many luxurious offices and corporate fleet of aircrafts. Furthermore, they invested heavily in advertising, derived most of their profits in the United States, and possessed a lackluster international expansion plan. Issues the financial managers face will be differing business philosophies in regards to marketing (“Grow/Defend/Maintain/Cash” matrix approach vs the large marketing budget of Anheuser-Busch), culture (cost cutting measures vs company perks), and the future of the twelve

This paper will have a detailed discussion on the shareholder theory of Milton Friedman and the stakeholder theory of Edward Freeman. Friedman argued that “neo-classical economic theory suggests that the purpose of the organisations is to make profits in their accountability to themselves and their shareholders and that only by doing so can business contribute to wealth for itself and society at large”. On the other hand, the theory of stakeholder suggests that the managers of an organisation do not only have the duty towards the firm’s shareholders; rather towards the individuals and constituencies who contribute to the company’s wealth, capacity and activities. These individuals or constituencies can be the shareholders, employees,

The proposed sale of Hershey Foods Corporation (HFC) during the summer of 2002 captured headlines and imaginations. After all, Hershey was an American icon, and when the company’s largest shareholder, the Hershey Trust Company (HSY), asked HFC management to explore a sale, the story drew national and international attention. The company’s unusual governance structure put the Hershey Trust’s board in the difficult position of making both an economic and a governance decision. On the one hand, the board faced a challenging economic decision that centered on determining whether the solicited bids provided a fair premium for HFC shareholders. On the other hand, the governance decision required the

Nevertheless if companies operate in weak markets and fail to create growth and profit the concept of maximization of shareholder wealth is also an opportunity for self-regulation and security against threats for a company. This approach is in particular useful for safeguarding against difficulties arising from wrong or misguided leadership within a corporation. Shareholders of a company have the strongest interest in a company’s success because they often invest a lot of capital in the business and require revenues for their deposit (Moore, 2002). As a matter of fact, they become more