Finance Course Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Finance Course Work - Essay Example (Gitman, 2011) Finance is often defined as the art of managing financial resources, which includes activities such as arranging these resources in the least expensive manner and, investing any surplus resources in order to reap extra margins. (Gitman, 2012) Moreover, it also includes the understanding of the basic operations in order to ensure the best management of the funds that are available to the manager. Finance also helps in assessing the financial strength of the company through the use of ratio analysis that helps one understanding various aspects of the firm such as liquidity, efficiency, profitability and leverage, while the most important principle of finance is based upon discounting the value of financial resources such as money, bonds and expected cash-flows with respect to time. (Brigham, 1998) The collapse of Lehman Brothers on 15th September 2008 had devastating impact on the confidence of the general investor throughout the world that led many financial managers to question the rules and regulation that dictate the environment of the business (The Guardian, 2011) Financial crisis have hardly known to be isolated to themselves, in fact they spread like any contagious disease that often triggers the collapse throughout the world. ... However, the scope of financial environment is not limited to technical institutions only as it also includes various other organizations with which one may enter in any kind of financial transaction, as financing and investment activities are never limited to the listed companies only. (Gitman, 2012) TIME VALUE OF MONEY Suppose that Mr. B borrowed an amount of ?100 from Mr. A in the year 1987. Today, Mr. B came back and returned that ?100 to A and exclaimed that he had finally paid off all his old debts. Would one consider the act of Mr. B as just and sound? The answer would be negative as the same amount of money is more worth than it would tomorrow. (Van Horne, 2008) Thus the concept of time value of money is based on the fact that money loses its worth every second due to factors such as inflation and reinvestment risk, therefore a ?1 of today is lesser worth of ?1 of yesterday. (Brigham, 1998) Future Value of a Sum As we already mentioned above about the reinvestment risk, it is the rate at which money can be reinvested for a specific period of time. (Brigham, 1998) Therefore, future value is the nominal amount of money that one will possess after a certain period at a given reinvestment rate, usually an interest rate. To illustrate with an example, consider that A invests ?100 at 10% interest rate for two years. In the first year A will earn ?10 on ?100, however at the start of the second year, the balance in A’s account will be ?110, therefore the interest that A will earn in the 2nd year will be on ?110 which should come out as 11. Thus A’s account balance at the end of the 2nd year will be ?121. This nominal value of ?121 is the future value of ?100 at the interest of 10% after the period of 2

Food Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Food Policy - Essay Example I refer to the year 1992 when the "Single European Market" (SEM, one supposes!) is due to take effect as most trade barriers within Western Europe, or at least in the Common Market, are to be dismantled. The UK government is currently investing over ten million pounds in television campaign to promote all businessmen to be ready to take benefits of these great news sales opportunities. With respect of this, all EEC countries crave to increase their exports into a static consumer market. Certainly, in some sections in the UK business industry there will be winner or looser. Confederation of British (CBI) industry, are already crying foul because to some extent they think that Western Europeans countries will try to buy the UK base corporations. If it happens, simultaneously the British mergers legislations will deter domestic companies in hope to get competitive advantages over international based organizations. This explains the fact, why so many British organizations have setup their business in the USA. But how will SEM affect the quick frozen food industry within the Common Market Maybe not nearly as much as it will some other markets partly because of the strong share of the total market held by Unilever and Nestle. Easily the largest slice of that total is Unilever's with their Birds Eye brand in the U.K., the Findus brand in Italy and Igloo just about everywhere else. Nestle, the Switzerland-based Corporation, use the Findus brand in the U.K. and in some of the other Common Market countries. Nestle use the Stouffer brand in the U.S.A. It has been proved that there is a big difference between brand name and corporate name. This is further evidenced by the variety of brand names used by the United Biscuits frozen food subsidiary, UB-Ross-Youngs, who apart from the brands Ross and Youngs use McVities and Mama Mia--and one or two others--in the U.K. Similarly another U.K.-based enterprise, Rank Hovis McDougal, use the brands Sharwoods (Indian specialties), Tiffany's (pies), Heinzel (cakes) and have now begun to use Mr. Kipling, a brand they have made renowned in the ambient cake sector, for a new variety of frozen hot puddings.' One does marvel what strategy these two major food groups will follow in preparation for the SEM. In contrast the Campbell Soup Company has given some sign as to their intention because having bought the U.K.-based Fresh bake Foods, one of the top three or four domestic frozen food companies; they have renamed themselves in Europe: Campbell's Foods. Campbell's were already using the brands Ungers in the U.K. and Groko on the Continent, but this writer imagines it is going to be Campbell's on everything from now on. At least Sara Lee and McCain's have a one brand strategy for Europe. Heinz has, more recently, entered the European QFF scene with a heavily supported launch of their Weight Watchers brand--of course they use the Ore-Ida brand on potato products in the States. Then there remains the mystery as to what the frozen food marketing future holds for the Pillsbury and Kraft companies under new managements. Pillsbury had just given up using the Fiesta brand in the U.K. to concentrate on Green Giant, and may continue to do so in Europe. Meanwhile, Kraft's new owners, the Philip Morris Group, also own General Foods but the Birds Eye brand