Bravos Cheddars Case Study - 881 Words

Case Study: Brazos Partners and Cheddar’s Inc. Brazos Partners is a company founded by Randall S. Fojtasek, Jeff Fronterhouse, and Patrick McGee in 1999. It is a Leverage Buyout Firm that targets companies with enterprise values between $50 and $250 million, solid management, a well-defined niche and is often close to the Brazos’ Dallas home. Location is an essential part of Brazos cooperate strategic management; according to Patrick McGee Texas is the 11th largest stand alone economy in the world and has the third largest universe of public and privately held mid-market companies in the US. In addition, it is very underserved with only a dozen LBO groups, most of which were energy specific. In 2002, Brazos was contacted by an†¦show more content†¦The main questions facing Fojtasek and the Brazos partners is whether they should do another deal with Cheddars and if so what price should they sell their ownership shares back at and what concessions they should make. I believe that Brazos should do the deal with Cheddar’s. The company has proven itself to be a winner and is projected to grow even more over the next few years. With restaurants being built at twice the anticipated pace and the success of its spinoff chain Fish Daddy’s, Cheddar’s is projected to out preform all five of its top competitors. Not only is there continued success on the horizon, at the core of Brazos business strategy is relationships and Cheddar’s has proven to be a solid business relationship. Since Cheddar’s is clearly in a growth stage that relationship must continued to be valued in order to achieve the maximum profitability. With regards to the stoc k price, Cheddar’s stocks were valued at $1 dollar per share with a $60.5 million investment, which is Cheddar’s stock value according to Bravos initial investment. Using Cheddar’s 2004 revenue adjusted for EBITDA and the multiplier (7.1) I came up with a new value of $88.75 million then divided that by the initial investment. My calculations gives the company a per share value of $1.47. I would hold Cheddar’s to that price. There was also the issue of the new real estate policy brought forth by the Cheddar’s board. While the concern that the trajectory of that plan

Puritans And The New England - 1344 Words

Puritans were a group of English Protestants who believed that the Reformation of the Church of English was still to stuck on Catholic formalities and wanted to simplify and regulate types of worship. The Puritans left England out of a need to purify the church and their own lives. They followed the writings of John Calvin to America and formed The Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was one of the original settlements, settled in 1630 by a group of about 1,000 Puritan refugees from England, under the guidance of Governor John Winthrop. In 1929, The Massachusetts Bay Colony received a charter from King Charles I allowing them to colonize in New England between the Charles River and the Merrimack River. The Puritans created a government with theocratic rule which was limited to church members. The Puritans initially settled in Boston in 1630. After Boston, they settled in Cambridge, Lexington, Concord, Watertown, Charlestown, and Dorchester. The Puritan population, in New England, rose from 17,800 people, in 1640, to 106,000, in 1700. The beliefs of the puritans were simple and straightforward. They believed that the Bible was God s true law and it provided the blueprints for a righteous life. People who did not agree with the Puritans theological views were advised to disperse from the area or convert to the popular beliefs of the majority. In fact, those who deviated from the socially acceptable way of living were strictly disciplined. The PuritansShow MoreRelatedPuritans And The New England1248 Words   |  5 PagesThroughout fifteenth century England, Puritanism was severely persecuted. Puritans were forced to go to the Anglican Church where they were also pushed into associating with those that were predestined for Hell. The Puritans wished to purify the Church of England in a way that allowed them to not only practice their religion, but to do so in a different location than the Hell-bound. In 1620, the Puritans left England and settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they were free to practice Puritanis mRead MoreNew England As A Refuge For Puritans Essay1984 Words   |  8 Pagesconcern: New England, the Middle Colonies, and the South. New England was a region with some aspirations of profit, but these aspirations were largely overshadowed by a desire to reform or purify English religion. Massachusetts was founded by John Winthrop as a refuge for Puritans escaping persecution. The Puritans were successful in promoting education, creating a sense of social cohesion, establishing a centralized form of government, and fostering a strong work ethic. However, the Puritans were limitedRead MoreEssay on Puritans in New England461 Words   |  2 PagesPuritans in New England Raised during the aftermath of the fall of the Spanish Armada to England, the Puritan generation they were children and grandchildren of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. An idealistic generation of the Colonial Cycle, the Puritans came to America seeking freedom, to practice religion in a manner different than that of the English. Puritans regarded New England as a place to establish a visible kingdom of God, a society where outward conduct would be accordingRead MoreThe Accusation of Witches in Puritan, New England1634 Words   |  7 Pagesweakness in times of trouble is the instinctive act of finding a scapegoat. Stemming from the Calvinistic religious beliefs of the Puritans who immigrated to America, anything that strays from the predestined lives of these puritanical people is the result of sin. The ideas of original sin and predestination are at the heart of Calvinism. Thus, the Calvinist Puritans have their lives planned out for them by God before birth and anything that disrupts that plan must be eradicated. It was on theRead MoreInfluence of the Puritan Faith on the Development of New England768 Words   |  3 PagesThe New England colonies rapidly developed though out the 1600s. This mass of development was influenced by the Puritans, whom founded a majority of the New England and several Middle c olonies. The Puritan philosophies and values formed and directed the progress of the colonies. Socially, strict emphasis on church and community was influential in other colonial settlements as well. Politically, unification and representation derived from the Puritans. Economically, ideas such as fair pricing originatedRead MoreThe Unjust System of New England Puritan Court System Essays1018 Words   |  5 Pages The court system in Puritan New England was an unfair and unjust system, stemming from the general court of Massachusetts. Many of the trials and procedures were ludicrous. General life in the Puritan communities was centered around religion and the judicial system reflected this. Religion crept into laws and the courts until they were practically combined. Puritans valued their religion zealously and it became part of everyday life in the colony. Religion was a huge part of law, the court, andRead MoreThe Impact of the New England Puritans and the Chesapeake Catholics on the Development of Colonial Society1144 Words   |  5 Pagesgroups often arrive and settle on a new piece of land, and happen to shape that society, around their beliefs and religion. The New England Puritans and the Chesapeake Catholics are prime examples to show how religion shaped the development of a colonial society. In 1624, the early 17th century, the religious group called the Puritans, settled for the first time in the New England territory. Once there, they chose to inhabit the Massachusetts area. The Puritans were a varied group of religiousRead Moreâ€Å"in What Ways Did the Ideas and Values Held by the Puritans Influence the Political, Economic, and Social Development of the New England Colonies from 1630 Through the 1660’s?†861 Words   |  4 PagesIn the 1630s and the 1640s, the Puritans traveled to the colonies to detach from their opinion of a convoluted Church of England. They set up towns and started new lives that were all based on their idea of a pure religion. The Puritans definition of a pure religion did not include many of the ideas of the Church of England. They built the colonies and made a system based upon the idea that God was the most important aspect of life. Puritan ideas and values influenced the political, economic,Read MoreHow Were The Puritans Dif ferent From The Pilgrims?961 Words   |  4 PagesHow were the Puritans different from the Pilgrims? According to US History, a community of christians traveled across the ocean to an unknown land, different from the society they left behind, they called themselves Pilgrims. The Pilgrims made up the states of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, which were the southern colonies. The Puritans made up the New England colonies, they were located in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. The firstRead MoreThe Realities Of Puritan Life With M. Night Shyamalan s Theatrical Interpretation1390 Words   |  6 PagesIn order to compare the realities of Puritan life with M. Night Shyamalan’s theatrical interpretation, The Village, it is important to understand who Puritans were and what kinds of beliefs they had. Puritans, different from Pilgrims, attempted to â€Å"purify† the Church of England in the seventeenth century as they felt it had been insufficiently reformed. Their idea of reformation consisted of a Calvinistic appr oach to society; believing in the absolute sovereignty of God, absolute dependence on divine

Financial Analysis Apple Inc. Free Essays

————————————————- To: ————————————————- ————————————————- By: ————————————————- ————————————————- FINANCIAL REVIEW TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Company Background 3 2. Stock Price Analysis 6 3. We will write a custom essay sample on Financial Analysis Apple Inc. or any similar topic only for you Order Now Risk Return Analysis 9 5. References11 PART I A. Company Background Apple Inc. long with its wholly-owned subsidiaries designs and manufactures and markets mobile communication, media devices, personal computers and portable digital music players along with a variety of related software’s, services, peripherals and networking solutions. The Company offers a range of mobile communication and media devices, personal computing products, and portable digital music players, as well as a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions and third-party hardware and software products. The most important of which are enumerated below: 1. Phone – iPhone combines a mobile phone and an iPod, Internet communication device in a single handheld product. 2. iPad – is a multi-purpose mobile device, for browsing web, sending and reading email, viewing photos watching videos, listening music, playing games and reading e-books etc. 3. Mac Hardware Products – includes likes of iMac, Mac-Pro and Mac mini. The iMac desktop has design that incorporates display, processor, graphics, storage, and other components in a single enclosure 4. iPod – line of portable digital media players includes likes of iPod touch, iPod shuffle and iPod classic. Pod is a flash-memory-based device with a widescreen display, a Multi-Touch user interface. 5. iTunes – is an application, which supports the sale, purchase, download, organization and playback of digital video and audio files and is also available for both the Mac and the Windows based computers. The Company not only sells to retail and bulk consumers, but also to small and mid-sized businesses, and to educational institutions, enterprises and government customers. The Company’s fiscal year ends on the last Saturday of September and is of 52 or 53-week period. The company has almost 60400 permanent employees and has the second largest market cap after IBM with about 563. 79 Billion dollars and an equal enterprise value, with revenues in excess of 142. 36 Billion dollars and with and EBITDA of 53. 27 billion dollars. B. Business Strategy Organization The Company’s business strategy is to uniquely leverage its ability to design, develop its own operating system, hardware, applications software’s, to its customers, and new products and new solutions with superior usage ease and seamless integration and innovative design. The Company’s strategy, also includes and basically rests on, expanding its distribution network so in order to effectively reach more customers. The Company manages business primarily on geographical basis and has segregated the business locations of its customers into the following 1. The Americas consisting of both North and South America, 2. Europe, Middles East and Africa, 3. Japan, 4. Asia-Pacific, Australia and Asian countries and 5. Retail. It is to be noted that all the above four segments do not include the retail segment figures and strategy. The retail segment consists of stores directly opened by the company and managed by it. C. Competition The products and services offered by the company are a part of highly competitive markets segment it faces stiff and aggressive competition in almost all areas of its business. The market is characterized by very frequent new product introductions and a rapid technological advancement that has substantial capabilities of use of mobile and related communications devices. There is a cut throat competition in the market where the company’s operates, as the competitors are continuously innovating and selling products at extremely low rates. However still the company has been able to maintain its market brand values and sees a good and extremely high level of operating cash flows generation. The Company’s major services i. e. digital content services is facing significant competition from other companies who are promoting their own digital music, services and content products, including free peer to peer video and music services. Some of Apple’s competitors have enough substantial resources and may provide such products and services in market at virtually little or no even profit to compete with the Apple’s offerings. The most important and major company’s competitors can be classified in various ways as below: However for our study later on, we shall consider HPQ or Hewitt Packard as a close competitor. PART II A. Stock Price Analysis For our stock price analysis, we consider the time period from 16 Mar – 2012 to 6 April – 2012. However it is to be noted that the time frame provided here is not ample for a detailed study and an accurate one for future predictions. We first study the movement of the Apple Inc. stock price movements’ vis-a-vis the SP 500. From the above figure it is clear that the movement of Apple is less volatile than that of the Index. It is also to be noted that the pattern of movement of Apple’s price show that it is lagging behind or trailing the trend movement of the index. Furthermore in the period under consideration above there seems to be an immediate uptrend developing and sustaining. Also the major point of astonishment here is during the period post 3 April 2012, the SP 500 and Apple’s stock prices are moving in opposite direction thereby indicating of some news based movement. This move was probably preempting the Q2 filing by the company which was due later in the next week. However no serious trend or movement is visible in either of the charts above. We do the same comparison of Apple with its peer HPQ for the same period. From the graph above it is quite clear that where Apple’s price movement is positively trending upwards, that of HOQ is a sideways movement without any perfect present trend or direction. The reason being the expectations from the forthcoming Q2 results of Apple, which was an event based movement for Apple, which was absent for HPQ. Now we study the movement of the stock prices on a standalone basis. From the above diagram it is clear that there is no significant or sudden movement in prices or volume of the stock. However they both show a good trend, and there is not much pressure on the prices of the stock at higher levels which is shown by the build of white candles and an uptrend, which indicates of further upside room present in the stock. However this seems to be news based event and should be properly traded. In all there are five black and ten white candles, which show an imminent uptrend in the stock price, which is also supported by sustenance in the daily volumes. PART III A. Risk Return Analysis We now perform a risk return analysis on the stock. We use the concepts of CAPM model and data for the period as specified in the above segment and calculate different measures as shown below and abridged in the accompanying excel file. From the above calculations we see that the Beta of Apple is lesser than that of HPQ and more close to 1 which resembles that Apple is less volatile than HPQ and more in tandem with the normal or broad market movement. On the other hand HPQ has a high beta indicating that the movement in prices of HPQ is more volatile and would yield a higher return, either positive or negative, as compared to Apple. This is also visible in the fact that the Expected return of HPQ is less than that of Apple, which is at least a percentage point or a 100 bps better than HPQ. It is also seen that Apple has been able to give positive returns as compared to HPQ and even the market. This means that Apple has been able to outperform the market. The reason behind the same is the fact that it is expected that the results of Apple for Q2 are going to be better due to the fact that they have recently launched new products and expanded on existing sales and product line, which would result in better revenue e, margins and sales and net profits, which would ultimately react in the EPS. Hence the returns of Apple are positive and more than that of HPQ. This indicates the fact that Apple seems to be an underpriced stock and should be bought as it seems to be giving more returns than the expected returns and compared to HPA and the index is an outperformer due to more fundamental reasons likes above expectation performance rather than purely and only technical reasons. All this is pretty evident in the Beta and the Expected returns of the stock. PART IV REFERENCES: 1. Thirty Year US T-Bill rate; Available at http://www. bloomberg. com/markets/rates-bonds/government-bonds/us/ 2. Apple Inc. Annual Report and About Company; Available at http://secfilings. nasdaq. com/edgar_conv_html%2f2011%2f10%2f26%2f0001193125-11-282113. html#FIS_BUSINESS 3. Stock Prices Data, Apple, SP, HPQ; Available at http://finance. yahoo. com 4. Apple Competitors; Available at http://www. nasdaq. com/symbol/aapl/competitors How to cite Financial Analysis Apple Inc., Essay examples

Beowulf13 Essay Example For Students

Beowulf13 Essay The Anglo-Saxon Culture as Illustrated in BeowulfBeowulf is an epic poem, which takes place in ancient Denmark and Geatland and describes the adventures of Beowulf, a Geat hero. Through their heroes, epic poems usually describe the traditions and beliefs of a certain culture. An Anglo-Saxon author wrote Beowulf about the Danes and Geats. The Anglo-Saxons had similar beliefs to that of the Dane and Geats, so the poem gives us some idea of what the Anglo-Saxon culture was like. Throughout Beowulf, it is illustrated that women were thought to be virtually valueless; that Anglo-Saxons believed in paganism, and that there was great emphasis on valuables and weaponry. The Anglo-Saxon culture did not value women highly. Women were not recognized for the deeds they did. The Danish Beowulfs own mother was not even recognized for her part in his birth. His father Ecgtheow was given all the credit for Beowulfs birth: And he gave them more than his gloryconceived a son for the Danes, a new leade r. (Beowulf, 1057). Kings usually would give away their daughters hand in marriage to a total stranger for a peace treaty with another nation. The daughter had no say in what was done with her, like Healfdenes daughter who was given away to Onela the Swedish king. In all aspects of life, women were not considered very valuable and were treated as objects rather than people. Hrothgar remembers Beowulf upon his arrival: His father was called Ecgtheow: Hrethel of the Geats gave him his only daughter for his home. Now has his hardly offspring come here, sought a fast friend.(1067). The daughters were usually forced to marry someone they did not know rather than being able to marry someone they loved. A woman was considered property, the ownership depending upon whether she was married or not. When married, she is her husbands, when unmarried, she is her fathers property. A man could beat his wife if she disobeyed him, and adultery by men was rarely punished, whereas women were disgraced and sent away for the same offense. Spinning, weaving, and cooking were skills possessed by nearly all of the women in the Anglo-Saxon period. Their main purpose was considered to bear children, feed, clothe their families, and to be a hostess for visitors. Women were not considered equal to men, especially in the aspect of fighting. In the wake of Grendels mothers attack, the destruction is not considered as mighty due to the fact that the attacker was a woman: The attack was less terrible by just so much as is the strength of women,(1079). The Anglo-Saxons were pagans, people who are not Christians. This is a trait that was shown throughout the poem. The warriors had the attitude that fate would decide their destiny. Beowulf leaves it up to fate as he prepares for the fight with Grendel: Fate always goes as it must! (1068). The people believed that Wyrd, the god of Fate, decided their future. The warriors showed a very fatalistic attitude. Beowulf proves this point when he tells Hrothgar not to mourn his friend Eshers death:Sorrow not, wise warrior. It is better for a man to avenge his friend than much mournLet him who may get glory before death: that is best for the warrior after he has gone from life. (1081). Beowulf believes that what happens is meant to happen and life will go on. The Anglo-Saxons thought that fate decided the outcome of their battles. When Beowulf decides to fight the dragon, fate is not on his side: His mind was mournful, restless and ripe for death: very close was the fate which should come to the old man, seek his souls hoard, divide life from his body, not long for him was the life of the noble one wound in his flesh. (1094). Beowulf illustrates the views of these people, and how their fighting was affected by their pre-Christian beliefs. Weapons and treasures were very important to the Anglo-Saxon people. These valuables symbolized all the fighting a warrior had done in order to receive them. The more good deeds a warrior had done, the more weapons and treasures he possessed. Unferth presents Beowulf with a great sword named Hrunting as Beowulf