如何加强企业财务的发展？-留学生作业范文

 
Finance Genius

  露辛达布鲁斯-加戴恩和杰维斯科塔姆，分别是创始人兼首席执行官天才食品（天才）的领导人之一。
2010年9月在united king dom(uk)进行无麸质烘焙会议，以检讨公司的战略计划。在只有15个月里，天才们销售额已经达到了
千万英镑。要完成一个了不起的成就，五年内要达到一个新的里程碑，将要要采取LACTOFREE的，另一种“自由”品牌。露辛达和杰维斯不谈业务如何增长，而是关注财务发展，天才是一家私营公司，如果要维持下去，留学生dissertation只能依靠其内部产生的收益，是否能通过银行贷款来资助扩张计？那么应该找到上市的交易所，但是谁会给它机会利用金融市场的股本和债务资本？天才是一个独立的实体公司，但其产品制造是芬斯伯里食品集团的（芬斯伯里）。芬斯伯里是非常热衷于进一步的综合和收购，并有实际意义想法的合资企业。它会是天才最佳合作伙伴吗？

   It was September 2010 and Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne and Gervase Cottam,
respectively founder and chief executive of  Genius Foods (Genius), one of the
leading gluten-free bakery in the  www.ukthesis.org  United King dom (UK), were meeting to review the
company’s strategic plan. In only 15 months, Genius had reached sales revenue of
￡10 million, a remarkable achievement – it  had taken Lacto free, another “free from”
brand, five years to reach this milestone. Lucinda and Gervase were not short of
ideas to grow the business. But they were concerned about how to finance this
growth. Genius was a private company. Should it remain so, and rely on its internally
generated earnings, and maybe bank loans,  to finance its expansion plans? Should
it seek a listing with a stock exchange, which would give it the opportunity to tap
financial markets for equity and debt capital? Genius was an independent entity, but
its products were manufactured by Fins bury Food Group (Finsbury). Finsbury was
very keen on further integration, and had moot ed the idea of a joint venture, or even
an acquisition. Would it be in Genius’s best interest to tie the knot?

 
Genius Foods 天才的食品

  Genius was founded by Lucinda Bruce-Ga rdyne, a housewife and mother of
three who had been trained at Leiths School  of Food and Wine and had previously
worked at Bibendum, a top restaurant in  London. Two of Lucinda’s children suffered
from food allergies and intolerances,  and could not eat bread and cakes. This had
given Lucinda the motivation to develop recipes for gluten-free bakery products, so
that her children could enjoy bread and cakes,  like all other children.  With the help of
Sir Bill Gammell, a local businessman whose child had a gluten intolerance, Lucinda#p#分页标题#e#
had launched Genius in April 2009. With in 15 months, it had become one of the
leading free from brands, on track for reac hing sales revenues of ￡20 million this
coming year.
 
  Genius currently offered a limited  range of bakery products, which were
manufactured by United Central Bakeries Ltd (UCB), a subsidiary of Finsbury. These
products were sold by supermarket chains  such as Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s,
Tesco and Waitrose. In March 2010, Lucinda had also reached an agreement with
Starbucks, the coffee chain, to supply gluten-free bread to 600 branches in the UK. 
 
  But Genius would not st op there; Lucinda and Gervase had plans to grow the
business in two directions. First, they  were contemplating  expanding abroad, in
particular in North America. The United States (US) market was about eight times
the size of the UK market, and Gervase had  estimated that it currently represented
about 60% of worldwide sales for gluten-free products; this was close to $3 billion.
Though the potential was huge, entering the  North American market would not be
easy. Genius had no experience doing business abroad, it was completely unknown
outside the UK, and had limit ed financial resources.
 
 Lucinda was also keen on diversifying the range of Genius’s gluten-free
products, and go beyond selling bakery products. She had developed recipes for
sausage rolls, chicken and steak pies, Cornish slices, etc. Her aim was to offer
 people who were avoiding gluten either for medical reason or by personal choice a
whole range of high quality food products. Genius was now a well-recognised brand
by both customers and distributors, and she thought that it was time to leverage up
this brand to diversify the portfolio of products. But this would require additional
investments, and Genius currently did not have enough funds to afford a rapid
expansion of the product portfolio.

Three Options 三个选择
 
  To finance Genius’s expansion, Luc inda and Gervase had identified three
options.
 
  The first option was to remain a privately held and independent company.
Genius was Lucinda’s “baby”, and though she wanted to grow her business, she did
not want to relinquish control and have other people dictate the company’s strategy.
This option would require re-investing internally generated earning s, and maybe turn
to high-street banks to provide loans. In  the aftermath of the  credit crunch, most
banks were restricting credit. This meant that Genius might have to delay some of its
expansion plans.
 
  The second option was to seek a  listing with a stock exchange. Gervase#p#分页标题#e#
thought that the alternative investment market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange
(LSE) was a good place to list a company like Genius, though he had not
investigated what it would take to obtain a  listing. Being a public company would give
the company more visibility, and it would be the opportunity to tap financial markets
for both equity and debt capital. But becoming a public company was expensive, and
brought its lot of challenges.
 
  The third option was to team up with  another company, and benefit from their
industrial expertise as well as capita l. Genius already  had an agreement with
Finsbury, which was manufacturing its products. Finsbury had a track record of
acquiring businesses, and seemed interested in closer ties with Genius. They could
help grow the portfolio of products, though they did not have much knowledge of the
North American market either. But even if there was an existing relationship between
Genius and Finsbury, Lucinda and Gervase were not ruling out finding another
partner, including a foreign one.

 
Finsbury Food Group 芬斯伯里食品集团
 
  Finsbury was a UK-based foods group  listed on the AIM of the LSE. The
company had mainly grown through acquisitions, and was now a portfolio of
subsidiaries including Lightbody of Ham ilton Ltd, Memory Lane Cakes Ltd (which
produced cakes for Nestlé, Weight Watchers and Thorntons), UCB (the subsidiary
producing Genius Foods’ gluten-free bakery products), Nicholas & Harris Ltd and
Goswell Enterprise Ltd, a recent additi on that had cost the group ￡2.2 million in
2009. These acquisitions had enabled Finsbury to grow quickly, but they had
increased the group’s financial  gearing substantially. As long as earnings were
growing, the relatively high level of debt was not too much of an i ssue. But the recent
recession had put pressure on sales revenue, which were down 6% between 2009
3
 
and 2010, at ￡168.3 million. Margins had also suffered lately, due to an increase in
the price of food commodities such  as sugar and wheat, combined with a
strengthening of the currencies these commodities were traded in. The gross profit
margin had however recovered slightly between 2009 and 2010.
 
  The dangerously high level of debt had pushed Finsbury to take actions, and
engage in restructuring activities. A new  management team had  been appointed to
turn around the company. John Duffy had ta ken over as chief executive officer
(CEO) in September 2009, joined in January 2010 by a new finance director,
Stephen Boyd. Both men had worked in the f ood industry before, and came from
private equity firms. They therefore  had valuable experience restructuring#p#分页标题#e#
operations, and negotiating with providers of  capital. They soon put in place
measures to achieve cost savings, whilst at the same time acti vely managing their
banking relationship.
 
  As of July 2010, Finsbury had net debt1 of ￡36.5 million, down from ￡41.0
million the year before. It had access to a ￡50.2 million facility with HSBC Bank plc,
including a ￡2.0 million overdr aft, a ￡16.0 milli on confidential invoice discounting
facility, a ￡12.9 million term loans repayable ov er five years, a ￡4.7 million term loans
repayable in five years, a ￡8.2 million mortgage facility and ￡6.4 million rolling asset
finance facility. But there was still a non-neg ligible amount of cr edit risk: ￡13.5 million
had to be repaid within a year; some of the loans and borrowings carried variable
interest rates that could increase overni ght; and Finsbury was subject to strict bank
covenants. To preserve cash, Finsbury had also eliminated its dividend, and did not
plan to re-instate it in the near future.
 
  Finsbury’s aim was to grow earnings and  cash flows to be able to pay down
debt and invest in growth opportunities. The agreement with Genius had been a
bonanza, boosting the group’s sales and improving margins. It was therefore
important to keep the relationship with G enius alive and thriving, and Finsbury was
prepared to make additional investments to support Genius’s growth.

 
Conclusion 结论
 
  Lucinda and Gervase were in need  of help to determine how to finance
Genius’s growth. They were in particular looking for:

  A critical assessment of Finsbury’s  financial health. As Genius relied on
Finsbury to manufacture its gluten-free products, and could potentially
become an even closer partner, Lucinda and Gervase wanted to make sure
that the food group wa s not facing any major financia l issues. In particular,
they wanted reassurance that Finsbury  was not overly indebted, and that its
cost of capital was not so high that it would prevent positive net present value
projects to be undertaken.
 
  Recommendations as to which option  to follow:
  (1) remain independent and
rely on its internally generated earnings , and maybe bank loans, to finance its
expansion plans
  (2) seek a listing with a stock exchange, which would give it the opportunity to tap financial markets fo r equity and debt capital or
 (3) tie the knot with either Fins bury or another suitor.

 
Resources 资源
 
For your analysis of Finsbury’s financial health, use:
   The Annual Report & Account s 2010 (posted on myBU); and
   If necessary, databases available via the library (e.g. FAME, Thomson#p#分页标题#e#
Analytics).
 
For financial market information (e.g. share prices, yields, etc), use  free resources
on the Internet. Please make sure that you always cite your source.