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Fedex vs Ups

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Finance VII
THE BATTLE FOR VALUE, 2004: FedEx Corp. vs. United Parcel Service, Inc.
Executive Team Summary

1. Introduction a. Main facts of the case
In the context of the U.S. & China agreement of liberalization of commercial cargo flights, determine which of the two companies has created more value and is in a better position to take the advantages of the new agreement. b. Most important Characteristics of the company studied in the case i. Industry: Air Delivery & Freight Services ii. Position in its industry & Main competitors

2. Answer the Questions presented at the end of the 1st session and reviewed and answered in the second session.

* How have FedEx and UPS performed financially? How do we measure its financial performance?
Financial performance measures that can be obtained from a firm’s financial statements consist of absolute data and financial ratios. Absolute measures such as income, net assets and equity, reveal trends and allow a company to be compared to its performance over time, while financial ratios, including return-on-assets and current ratio, adjust for scale and allow for comparisons of different-sized companies.
Financial ratios are ideal to compare FedEx and UPS, since UPS has $13.5 billion more in assets and $11 billion more in revenues than FedEx. Please see Table 2 for a comparison of the most common and widely used financial ratios. UPS is outperforming FedEx in liquidity, solvency and profitability measures, while lagging in activity and growth. This would indicate that UPS has superior financial performance, but the disadvantage of using financial statement information is the use of book values, not market values, which are historic. As a result, the information is not as relevant, and inferences are backward, not forward-looking.

More relevant measures, such

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