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Tyson is a worldwide provider of various food products such as chicken, beef, pork, and prepared foods. The company felt that recent positive performance was due primarily to their focus on the "home-meal replacement" market segment. For years the traditional family unit has undergone tremendous change. The "typical" American household no longer consists of a working father and a stay-at-home housewife mother who prepares four course meals for the family (which includes 2.4 children).
Today, there is no one definition of a "family" or "household." Phrases used to describe life today include, duel family incomes, fast-food takeout, microwave cooking, etc. People just don't seem to have the time or are not willing to make the time to cook at home the way they used to. Forbes Magazine reports that a decade ago 70% of all purchases from the grocery store were for ingredients used to make meals in the home. Today, only 47 cents out of every dollar are spent on ingredients. What then are people spending their money on at the grocery store? They're buying meals that are prepared someplace else and only need to be heated up. The food industry refers to this as ready-to-cook or ready-to-eat meals. Examples include frozen pizzas, deli sandwiches, canned soup, frozen dinners, chicken pot pies, frozen sausage biscuits, and the list goes on and on. Industry experts predict this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. In fact, they say that within the next ten years, this market segment will represent over two-thirds of all grocery store purchases.
Even in these exciting times of high earnings, Tyson must be sure to keep track of their accounting. Below is a list of all the items found on their Balance Sheet. Reconstruct Tyson's Balance Sheet by arranging the items in their correct order.
| Tyson's Balance Sheet items in Alphabetical Order | Dollar amount in millions (except per share data) |
| Accounts receivable | 1,240 |
| Accumulated other comprehensive loss | (12) |
| Assets | |
| Capital in excess of par value | 1,849 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 33 |
| Current assets | |
| Current debt | 338 |
| Current liabilities: | |
| Deferred income taxes | 695 |
| Goodwill | 2,558 |
| Intangible assets | 149 |
| Inventories | 2,063 |
| Less treasury stock | 264 |
| Less unamortized deferred compensation | 46 |
| Liabilities and Shareholder's Equity | |
| Long-term debt | 3,024 |
| Net property, plant and equipment | 3,964 |
| Other assets | 261 |
| Other current assets | 196 |
| Other current liabilities | 1,010 |
| Other liabilities | 160 |
| Retained earnings | 2,728 |
| Shareholder's equity: | |
| Class-A common stock | 27 |
| Class-B common stock | 10 |
| Total assets | 10,464 |
| Total current assets | 3,532 |
| Total current liabilities | 2,293 |
| Total liabilities and shareholder's equity | 10,464 |
| Total shareholder's equity | 4,292 |
| Trade accounts payable | 945 |
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