market009234

Question: You own a small farm where you plant vegetables, which you sell to various shops in your neighbouring towns. You also have contracts with three local nursery schools, five primary schools, two high schools and three old age homes. You deliver your products to each of your clients daily, on weekdays.

You have divided your staff into three teams:

1. The first team is responsible for farming and harvesting. This team consists of one supervisor, who is a farmer, and three other farmers.

The supervisor of this team, John, has been living and working on the farm his whole life, as did his parents and grandparents. John left school when he was 16 years old and started working on the farm. He has never worked anywhere else. He was promoted to the position of supervisor three years ago. John is now 55 years old.

Susan (30 years old), Peter (35 years old) and Kenneth (25 years old) are the other members of the team. Susan has a degree in agriculture and started working on the farm after she graduated. Peter worked on another farm for ten years after he matriculated, before he was employed by you. Kenneth started working on your farm after completing his matric.

2. The second team is responsible for packing the vegetables according to the orders received. This team consists of one supervisor and three packers.

Mary is the supervisor of this team. Mary worked for South African farming enterprise and fresh produce company called ZZ2 Tomatoes for five years, before you employed her six years ago. Mary does not have a formal qualification and is 40 years old.

Mandla (18 years old), Joy (45 years old) and Andrew (27 years old) are the packers in the team. Mandla completed matric last year. Joy completed matric and worked as a cashier in a supermarket for 20 years, before she started working for you seven years ago. Andrew wanted to be a teacher and studied for three years, before he gave up on his studies and started working for you. Andrew is John's son.

3. The third team is responsible for delivering produce to clients. You supervise this team. The other team members are two drivers.

You are a fifth-generation farmer and have inherited the farm from your father. You studied civil engineering and worked as an engineer for ten years, before inheriting the farm and moving back home to take over the running of the farm. You are 36 years old.

Vusi (22 years old) and Emily (30 years old) are the drivers. None of them have any tertiary qualifications and started working on the farm after matriculating.

QUESTION

Conduct an internal and external environmental analysis of your business using a variety of tools. The following should be included in your analysis:

1. List at least four of your business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

2. Describe the motivation behind the classification of each strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat.

3. Compare each internal factor from your analysis with that of your competitor.

4. How will you use your business' strengths and opportunities to your advantage?

5. What will you do to mitigate your business' weaknesses and threats?

The Wilfrid Laurier University bookstore conducts annual surveys of its customers. One question asks respondents to rate the prices of textbooks. The wording is, "The bookstore's prices of textbooks are reasonable." The responses are as follows:

1. Strongly disagree

2. Disagree

3. Neither agree nor disagree

4. Agree

5. Strongly agree

The responses for a group of 115 students were recorded. Graphically summarize these data and report your findings. : What is the solution? The CIA World Fact Book presents an array of international data about people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues around the world. Use data from the CIA World Factbook (Links to an external site.) to create graphics that answer the following questions:

Where are the 10 countries with the highest median age? What are the energy production and consumption of the 10 largest countries by geographic areas and by population? Select a country in which you would like to live one day or one that is home to a client or business partner of your organization. How does that country compare to the United States on at least two of the following factors? Choose from people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, or transnational issues. [12:58 AM, 10/25/2021] Flo: The distinction between contracts that are covered by the UCC and those that are not is?

To satisfy the UCC statute of frauds, a written agreement for the sale of goods must

8 As investment management companies develop global operations and competition between them becomes more intense, a need has developed for global performance standards to enable a more reliable comparison of managers' performance. The developing standards include the following four elements: Portfolio valuations at least monthly Use of time-weighted returns for performance calculation Accrual accounting for dividends (based on ex dividend dates) Composite data should be provided which is the average of all funds managed by the investment management company to the same benchmark Explain the relevance of each of these standards in ensuring that the comparison provides a more accurate reflection of managers' underlying performance.

7 You are the consultant to the trustees of a new and growing defined benefits pension scheme. The chairman of the trustees has just liquidated his own small personal portfolio. In view of continued volatility in world markets, he has recommended to his fellow trustees that the company scheme switches all its funds into bonds and cash. The trustees have asked you to comment on his recommendation. Discuss the main items which you would include in your response.

6 (i) A company has a current market capitalisation of 500m and has pursued a dividend policy which ensures that its cover remains a constant two times. The latest dividend was 25p per share and the share price last traded at 10. The latest annual report states that the average cost of capital for the company is 7% and that its net assets per share stand at 4. Calculate (a) the company's historic PER (b) the EVA of the company (c) the value the market is currently placing on this EVA [6] (ii) Explain how the price earnings ratio of Chemical companies might be expected to compare with the ratio of companies in the Pharmaceutical sector over the course of a typical trade cycle.

5 (i) List the uses of investment indices. [4] (ii) In the recent past the Dow Jones Index has outperformed both the S&P 500 Index and the Russell 2000 Index. Describe the main features of these three indices and give possible reasons for the divergent performance. [4] (iii) A new UK index is being proposed which will be an arithmetically weighted index. The weights used in the index will be industry based using contributions of the industry to GDP e.g. if the life assurance industry represented 5% of GDP then the life assurance sector would have a 5% weight in the index. Comment on the proposed new index, and compare it with other commonly used UK indices. [2] (iv) An investment bank is considering the introduction of an index of commodity future prices, to use as a barometer of global industrial supply and demand. List three broad classes of commodities you would expect to be included in the index and comment on the factors you would consider when building the index.

4 After several years of poor investment performance the senior management of a small life insurance company is concerned about the ability of its in-house investment team to deliver the consistently good results which are required to remain competitive. The poor domestic equity performance has been attributed to the team's tendency to favor small stocks which have value characteristics. The poor overseas performance has been blamed on a lack of resources. (a) State the broad options available to the company in respect of its investment operations. (b) Explain in detail the considerations involved in these options, and the investigations which need to be conducted in order to decide which option to pursue.

3 You are the Chief Investment Officer of a fund management organization. After a number of high profile financial failures and crises in financial institutions, the board of the organization has asked you to review investment risk controls within your operation. (i) Define four types of risk which will need to be considered. [2] (ii) Discuss the key points which you will need to examine in order to satisfy the board of directors.

2 A growing company has for many years run a defined benefit pension scheme for its employees. The company has now decided to close its existing defined benefit scheme to new entrants, and to establish a new defined contribution scheme, which all new employees would be offered the chance to join. Explain (a) the different investment considerations which apply to the two types of pension scheme, and (b) the long-term implications which the decision may have for the investment strategy of the continuing defined benefit scheme.

1 You are the Chief Investment Officer for a UK pension fund of a major company with assets in excess of 4bn. The assets are managed across multiple asset classes using a number of investment managers. Following the disposal by the company of one of its subsidiaries, the pension fund is required to pay a bulk transfer of approximately 200m to another pension fund in six weeks time. The amount to be paid is linked to the total return statistic for the FTSE All Share Index. Under the terms of the sale agreement, the pension fund is obliged to settle the payment by transferring stock representing a reasonable cross section of the fund, but both parties may by agreement vary the distribution. (i) Explain the investment risk for the pension fund which is introduced by the liability for this payment, illustrating your answer with a simple example. [4] (ii) Explain how derivatives may be used to mitigate this risk and list the problems which may arise. [4] (iii) Discuss the adjustments you would propose to a pro rata distribution for the benefit.