...CHAPTER 3 OVERVIEW OF ACCOUNTING ANALYSIS HARNISCHFEGER CORPORATION 1 Identify all the accounting policy changes and accounting estimates that Harnischfeger made during 1984. Estimate, as accurately as possible, the effect of these on the company’s 1984 reported profits. i. Harnischfeger Corporation had changed from accelerated to straight-line method for computing depreciation expenses on plants, machinery and equipment in 1984.The cumulative effect is that net income for 1984 increased by $11 million or $0.93 per common and equivalent share. As a result, this change applied on all assets previously subjected to accelerated depreciation, which has an insignificant effect. But in long term, he changes in depreciation policy would cause higher depreciation costs, so the maintenance costs would be higher in the future. ii. The company made a long-term contract about purchasing equipment with Kobe Steel, Ltd, As a result, the manufacturing costs are reduced, and both aggregate sales and cost of sales increased by $28 million. This change influenced on the quality of the earnings, which the profit margin was decreased to 1.44%. iii. Harnischfeger Corporation changed the inventories method to LIFO, thus increasing net income by $2.4 million. iv. Harnischfeger Corporation liquidated excess inventories and stretching payments to creditors. This can decrease the amount of debts and reduce the debts/equity ratio. As a result the company may get a unqualified audit...
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...Harnischfeger Corporation Introduction Harnischfeger Corporation is a machinery company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Harnischfeger was founded in 1884 as a partnership and was incorporated in Wisconsin in 1910 under the name Pawling and Harnischfeger. There were two major segments in this company, Construction Equipment and the Mining and Electrical Equipment divisions and Material Handling Equipment and the Harnischfeger Engineers divisions. Harnischfeger experienced a rapidly growth during the 1970s. However, the worldwide recession in the early 1980s caused a significant drop in demand for the company’s products starting in 1981 and Culminated in a series of events that shook the financial stability of Harnischfeger. (Palepu & Healy, 2013) So the Harnischfeger management decided to make some changes to respond to the financial crisis. Strategy Analysis Rivalry among existing firms Harnischfeger was a leading producer of construction equipment. The company had a dominant share of machinery market. In construction equipment market, Harnischfeger had market shares of about 20% in hydraulic cranes and 30% in lattice boom cranes. In the 1980s the construction equipment industry in general was experiencing declining margins. So the industry growth rate is low. The concentration of the construction equipment industry is quite low. Now there are only about 670 companies in the construction machinery manufacturing industry. The switching costs of this industry...
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...Harnischfeger Corporation, a large New York Stock Exchange company, faced a financial crisis in 1982. New management was appointed to turn the company around and as part of its restructuring strategy, the new management team made a number of financial reporting policy changes and accounting estimates in fiscal year 1984. Listed below are all of the changes and analysis on whether they might be real earnings management activities. In addition, the effect of these changes on the company’s revenue, pre-tax profits and cash flows for the year 1984 will also be shown. 1. Depreciation method of its US operating plants was changed from accelerated methods to straight line method for financial reporting purposes (Note 2).This change in depreciation accounting method increased the 1984 income by $11 million. Harnischfeger’s management explained that this change was to conform to the industry standard. Under normal circumstances, this change would be perfectly reasonable. However, in this case, the timing of this policy change is questionable. It occurred when Harnischfeger was in the midst of negotiating its debt restructuring process with the banks. And since changing to a straight line method will improve the company’s financial strength in the short run, it strongly suggests that move was performed by the management to artificially improve the balance sheet in favour of the negotiations. 2. As a result from the change in depreciation method, there was also an adjustment of the residual...
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...ACCT5910 Business Analysis and Valuation Summary of Case This case is talking about Harnischfeger Corporation, leading producer of Construction Equipment, Mining and Electrical Equipment, Material Handling Equipment and Harnischfeger Engineer, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The main topic of this case is the accounting policy changes after financial difficulties and its effect on financial reporting and the motive of these changes. Questions 1. Identify all accounting policy changes and accounting estimates that Harnischfeger made during 1984. Estimate, as accurately as possible, the effect of these on the company’s 1984 reported profit. Harnischfeger made the following accounting policy changes and accounting estimates during the year 1984. - There was a change in the recognition of some types of sales. This resulted in a change in sales calculation. Harnischfeger incorporated products purchased from Kobe Steel, which were re-sold by the company, into its net sales. This increased aggregate sales and cost of sales by $28 million. - There was a change in the fiscal year for some foreign subsidiaries. - There was a change in the depreciation methods on assets. The depreciation policy for financial reporting purposes was changed to a straight-line method from a principally accelerated method. - There was a change in the use of last-in, first-out (LIFO) liquidation in inventory valuation. - There was a change in the allowance for doubtful accounts. ...
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...Harnischfeger Corporation Teaching Note INTRODUCTION The purpose of the "Harnischfeger Corporation" case is to expose students to the managerial motives for making major financial reporting policy changes. Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) allow companies wide latitude in the choice of accounting policies. After a firm chooses a set of accounting policies, current accounting rules permit changes from one alternative policy to another at the discretion of the management. Since reported accounting figures are widely used by a number of external parties, managers of firms have incentives to choose accounting policies in order to influence the behavior of these parties. A variety of managerial motives for accounting policy decisions have been identified in the accounting literature. The Harnischfeger case is designed to encourage students to explore these motives. Harnischfeger Corporation, a large New York Stock Exchange company, faced a financial crisis in 1982. New management was appointed to turn the company around. As part of its restructuring strategy, the new management team made a number of financial reporting policy changes in fiscal 1984. Together, these changes accounted for most of Harnischfeger's reported 1984 profits. More significantly, these changes represented a substantial switch from the company's earlier conservative reporting philosophy to a more aggressive one. The case describes the company's financial crisis, the turnaround...
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...Harnischfeger Corp. Case Harnischfeger Corp. is a large New York Stock Exchange company but with old-line, low-tech. This family-based old midwest company had a history for almost 100 years. When the recession hit the financial world during 1980-1981, Harnischfeger could hardly maintain its solid financial performance. Finally, it violated the bond covenants that significantly cause financial distress. In the year of 1984, a number of accounting policy changes were made by the new manager, Peter Roberts. The goals of our team are to figure out whether the company can truly turned around with respect to the Peter Roberts’ decisions. There were several managerial actions that affecting either accounting estimates or accounting policy in the year of 1984. First of all, Harnischfeger’s allowance for doubtful accounts as a percentage of gross accounts receivable dropped from 9.1% in 1983 to 6.3% in 1984 according to the Note 8. If we assume that the company continues to utilize its allowance for doubtful accounts at 9.1% of its gross accounts receivable at the end of 1984, its bad debt expense in 1984 would be $2.6 million more than expenses reported on the incomes statement. Because of the complexity of the components that affects the bad debt expense, it is possible that the management team could manipulate the balance. Then, in 1984, Harnischfeger began to sell products purchased from Kobe Steel in the market. However, a close inspection on the the financial statement reveals...
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...Question 1. Identifying all the changes in accounting policy and accounting estimates that Harnischfeger made during financial year ending October 31, 1984. Also include in your discussion, what you believe may be real earnings management activities to affect profit. Estimate as accurately as possible, the effect of these changes on the company’s revenue, pre-tax profits and cash flows in 1984. Harnischfeger made the following changes in accounting policy and estimates: Harnischfeger made changes regarding the recognition of some types of sales. They decided to include products bought from Kobe Steel Ltd. and sold by them to be in its net sales, effective November 1983. Before that, only gross margin from products bought from Kobe was included. The company claimed that they wanted to present more fairly the nature of the business transactions with Kobe. Therefore, this increased the aggregate sales by $28 million during the fiscal year 1984. In my opinion, this may be real earnings management activity to affect profit because there is no solid reason for the company to make such changes. It was purely to increase the company’s revenue. In addition, effective fiscal 1984, Harnischfeger changed some of its foreign subsidiaries financial year-end to September 30 instead of July 31. This would affect the consolidated income statement of the company and it increased the net sales in 1984 by $5.4 million since this lengthened the reporting period to 14 months of operations of those...
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...enterprise, and are also affected by it. 2. According to Porter, what determines the level of competitive intensity in an industry? According to Porter, the level of competitive intensity is determined by 5 basic competitive forces namely: (1) Threat of new entrants to a market (2) Bargaining power of suppliers (3) Bargaining power of customers or buyers (4) Threat of substitute products and (5) Degree of competitive rivalry 3. What should be scanned in the task environment? There should be an analysis of relevant elements in the task environment such as: (1) Competitors (2) Suppliers (3) Regulators (4) Strategic Partners (5) Labor and (6) Customers. 4. Discuss how a development in a corporation’s societal environment can affect the corporation through its task environment. 5. How can managers identify external strategic factors? a. Environmental uncertainty b. Issues priority matrix c. New entrants d. Entry barriers e. Rivalry f. Substitute products g. Bargaining power of buyers and suppliers h. Bargaining power of other...
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...Unit VIII Article Critique Columbia Southern University DBA 7553 1. Introduction of the Article This article is found in the Directors and Boards magazine. It is written by Donald P. Delves who “is president of the Delves Group, a compensation and corporate governance consulting firm that advises boards of directors” (Delves, 2012). The article is titled “What about everyone else? The problem may not be that executives are paid too much, but that employees are paid too little.” 2. Statement of the Problem Studied In this article, Mr. Delves examined why people complain about executive pay, how companies used to inflate employee earnings, and how companies can increase employee wages now. 3. Significance of the Problem Studied With sky rocketing pay for many executives over the last few decades, many employees have wondered why their pay has not also increased. In the past companies have used stock options to provide incentive for employees and to use these as a pathway to increase employee pay. However with the economic recession and many of the changes in accounting practices, companies could no longer use this incentive to increase wages for employees. Thus Mr. Delves presents the question, “what do we do about [increasing employee incentives]?” (Delves, 2012). If this question can be answered, it has the potential to not only increase employee productivity but also to provide them with increased opportunities. ...
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...1) Why do you think Starbucks has been so concerned with social responsibility in its overall corporate strategy? Starbuck is a known corporation local and international for their freshly brewed coffee and other products that are offered. Social responsibility helps the company image, to care about the community and the environment, these are positive stand points that define the company self portrait. It's important how you look on the outside, in the end it's all about sales. As mention in the text “people first and profit last” once a corporation can fulfill its duties that benefit the consumer and the parties involve then there is no need to worry about the business profit. 2) Is Starbucks unique in being able to provide a high level of benefits to its employees? The text mention “it is better for a company to take some short-term loses than to lose sight of its core values in the long term “yes Starbucks is unique because not many restaurant offer the kind of benefits as Starbuck. The employees are important to the business and it helps to retain them. Offering health insurance, paid time off, and other perks are ways to keep employees happy which lead to great work effort and a successful business. It also helps to lower the business employment turnover rate and save the corporation money because they do not spend much money and recruiting new employees and to train them. 3) Do you think that Starbucks has grown rapidly because of its ethical and socially responsible...
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...to maximize a firms [sp] profit potential, a corporation should match its greatest strengths, with external factors to create opportunities. When assessing opportunities to acquire a new business unit, firms should only seek to acquire units that have strengths that match, enhance or can be combined with the firms established strengths. The article [which? there is no list of references -- you’re supposed to discuss an issue from class before discussing the article] is about how firms are purchasing business units that do not align with their strengths or the vision/mission of the parent corporation. Once the business unit is acquired the viable option is to sell if off in pieces because it is not contributing to the corporations strengths. We agree with the author [sp] premise that diversification should not be pursued unless it will help a parent corporation achieve its already established mission. Corporations should avoid acquiring firms that possess strengths or missions not aligned with the parent corporation. A firm should not see purchasing business units as strength [clumsy]; a corporation’s strength is not an action. A corporation should see the reason why they have accumulated the financial resources necessary to purchase additional business units as their strength. Once that strength is identified the corporation should be pursing business units that have underlining strengths that will enhance the parent corporations [sp] ability to pursue their mission and maximize...
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...Introduction and Course Philosophy: This course covers accounting theory and practice for business combinations, segment and interim reporting, foreign exchange and partnerships. Business combinations cover most forms of mergers and acquisitions, which are common among business entities. Segment reporting is how management disaggregates financial results into meaningful business performance. Foreign exchange covers the basics of currency transactions and translation including hedging, which are common in the global economy. Finally, in partnerships we cover more extensively the formation, operation and dissolution of general partnerships, the most prevalent form of business in the United States. In my career in financial services, I was personally involved in 3 large business combination involving aspects of mergers, segment reporting and foreign exchange that we will discuss in class. You will be exposed to the authoritative accounting literature covering each area and get hands on experience in solving typical problems faced by accounting practitioners. We will complete the entire syllabus. Required Text: Advanced Accounting---11th edition, Hoyle, Schaefer and Doupnik McGraw Hill/Irwin 2013. A separate loose leaf edition, with only the chapters we cover will be available exclusively at the Queens College bookstore. The ISBN for the looseleaf edition is 9780077772932. Acquiring the loose leaf edition gives you the convenience of being able to bring only the chapters...
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...LEGAL FORM OF BUSSINESS In this paper we will compare and discuss different forms of business and their advantages and disadvantages. Following are the different type of business formed to conduct work: 1. Sole proprietorship. 2. Partnership. 3. Limited liability partnership. 4. Limited liability company. 5. S corporation. 6. Franchise. 7. Corporate. 1. Sole proprietorship, The sole proprietorship is a type of business entity that is owned and run by one individual. All the decisions of the business are made by that individual and there is no legal distinction between that individual and the business. Following are the advantages and disadvantages of Sole proprietorship Advantages They have the ability to raise capital either publicly or privately. To limit the personal liability of the officers and managers. Limit risk to investors. Sole proprietorships have the least government rules and regulations affecting it. Owners have complete control over all the aspects of his or her business. The owner can take any managerial decisions that he/ she wants to take. Disadvantages Raising capital for a proprietorship is more difficult because an unrelated investor has less peace of mind concerning the use and security of his or her investment . The investment is more difficult to formalize other types of business entities have more documentation. The enterprise may be crippled or terminated if the owner becomes ill. The business is the same legal entity...
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...Anthony and Karen were partners doing business as the Petite Garment Company. Leroy owned a dye plant that did much of the processing for the company. Anthony and Karen decided to offer Leroy an interest in their company, in consideration for which Leroy would contribute his dye plant to the partnership. Leroy accepted the offer and was duly admitted as a partner. At the time he was admitted as a partner, Leroy did no know that the partnership was on the verge of insolvency. About three months after Leroy was admitted to the partnership, a textile firm obtained a judgment against the partnership in the amount of 50,000. This debt represented an unpaid balance that had existed before Leroy was admitted as a partner. The textile firm brought an action to subject the partnership property, including the dye plant, to the satisfaction of its judgment. The complaint also requested that, in the event the judgment was unsatisfied by sale of partnership property, Leroy’s home be sold and the proceeds applied to the balance of the judgment. Anthony and Karen own nothing but their interest in the partnership property. What should be the result: With regard to the dye plant- With regard to Leroy’s home- Since Leroy was admitted before the judgment was actually brought upon the partners It would make him liable to subsequent debts of the partnership along with Anthony and Karen, since the dye plant was part of the deal when Leroy entered the partnership it would be considered...
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...organization. The single owner of business has entire ownership and control over the assets and capital invested in the business and he or she is individually responsible (subject to some restrictions) for the expenses and liabilities of the business. • Liability A different advantage, nonetheless, is that the proprietor of this business form is responsible for all the business liabilities. Therefore, if a sole owner business undergo into financial crisis, creditors can originate lawsuits against the sole proprietor. If lawsuits are successful then proprietor has to pay the liability with his or her money. The owners of this business form can, and frequently do, combine business and personal funds and property, unlike partnerships, LLCs and corporations, they cannot do this. • Income taxes Due to the fact that sole proprietorship is not distinguishable from its owner, its characteristics...
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