MINICASE Terence Breezeway, the CEO of Prairie Home Stores, wondered Mt. Breezeway was proud of this record, although he wished what retirement would be like. It was almost 20 years to the day that Prairie Home could have grown more rapidly. He had since his uncle Jacob Breezeway, Prairie Home's founder, had up several opportunities t asked him to take responsibility for managing the company. Now it Prairie Home was still just a family company. Its common stock was time to spend more time riding and fishing on the old Lazy was distributed among 15 grandchildren and nephews of Jacob passed Breezeway, most of whom had come to depend on generous regular slowly but steadily and was solidly profitable. (Table 7.6 shows the earnings available for reinvestment and thereby constrained Most of the company's supermarkets had been modernized, and its Mr. Breezeway believed the time had come to take Prairie Home public. Once its shares were traded in the public market, the The company traditionally paid out cash dividends equal to10% o start of period book value. See Table 16. Beta Ranch. Under Mr. Breezeway's leadership, Prairie Home had grown dividends. The commitment to high dividend payout0 had reduced earnings, dividends, and book asset values for the last 5 years.) growth. brand name was well known