The financial statements of The Hershey Company appear in Appendix B, following the financial statements for Tootsie Roll in Appendix A. Assume Hershey’s average number of shares outstanding was 227,517,000, and Tootsie Roll’s was 56,072,000.

Instructions

(a) For each company calculate the following values for 2009.

(1) Working capital. (4) Free cash flow.

(2) Current ratio. (5) Earnings per share.

(3) Debt to total assets ratio

(Hint: When calculating free cash flow, do not consider business acquisitions to be part of capital expenditures.)

(b) Based on your findings above, discuss the relative liquidity and solvency of the two companies.

RESEARCH CASE