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While preparing a financial forecast, the newly promoted CFO of a small and profitable but financially constrained ready-mix concrete company must choose between renegotiating debt obligations, postponing long overdue capital improvements that will prevent more costly future repairs, or reducing the dividend payment to a parent company that just recently purchased the firm.

After having negotiated major financial and operating decisions with its parent company, the CFO of this small ready-mix concrete subsidiary is asked to provide a valuation of the subsidiary. A one-year forecast of financial statements is provided along with information on long-term operating expectations and capital costs. This otherwise straightforward valuation exercise is enhanced by (1) the need to select between the parent- or comparable-firm costs of capital, (2) sufficient guidance to perform an illuminating sensitivity analysis, and (3) a sufficiently clear and rich context in which to illustrate the linkages between operating and financing choices. A teaching note and instructor and student Excel spreadsheets are available.

Marketing, Sports marketing and Social media marketing.

Graduate level.

This case, based on field research and multiple secondary sources, documents the 12-month period since early 2014 during which Cricket South Africa (CSA) developed the Protea Fire brand for their national men’s cricket team, known as the Proteas. In mid-2014, Marc Jury, the Commercial and Marketing manager of CSA set up a project team to take the previously in-house Protea Fire brand public. With the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand less than a year away, Jury worked with a diverse project team of Proteas players, cricket brand managers and external consultants to build a public brand identity for the national team, to nurture greater fan affinity and to mobilize South Africans behind their team for the World Cup. The project team developed a range of Protea Fire multimedia content as the core of the campaign. These included video diaries, scripts which were written by the Proteas players themselves, player profile videos, motivational team-talk videos and good luck video messages featuring ordinary and famous South Africans. Having invested in creating this content, the project team faced the difficult task of allocating a limited media budget to broadcast and amplify the content. Another significant challenge was to ensure that the Proteas team values were authentically communicated across all content, including via the social media strategy using Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. As the World Cup tournament kicked off on February 14th 2015, South Africa was well placed to overcome their previous inability to reach a final, although Jury wondered whether another exit in the knockout round would weaken the strong and positive emotions the Protea Fire campaign had ignited. With the last two balls remaining in South Africa’s semi-final game against New Zealand on March 24th 2015, and the home team requiring just five runs to win, Jury joined 60 million South Africans hoping that Protea Fire was strong enough. The case concludes with South Africa losing the semi-final game and Jury turning his attention to how the #ProteaFire campaign should respond.

This study aimed to analyse the development of a sport team brand and a megaevent campaign; to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of a marketing campaign; and to consider appropriate brand responses to the team’s failure to deliver on expectations.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This case study draws on interviews conducted with officials from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), City of Woonsocket and Town of North Smithfield. Additionally, it pulls from relevant legal documents, recordings and minutes from meetings of the Woonsocket City Council and North Smithfield Town Council, City Council resolutions, state legislation and local press coverage.

From 2012–2017, the communities of Woonsocket and North Smithfield engaged in a protracted dispute concerning wastewater disposal. For 30 years, the two jurisdictions had maintained a signed service agreement. Following its expiration; however, Woonsocket imposed a new host fee on North Smithfield. Woonsocket needed to upgrade the facility to comply with mandates from the RI DEM. Over the next five years, leaders from both jurisdictions vociferously fought over the new fee. At the same time, leaders within communities experienced their own divisions. This case study highlights the challenges that decision-makers faced in both communities.

This case is appropriate for graduate and executive level courses in environmental policy, communication and leadership.

Communication Solutions (CS), a woman-owned business, experienced fast growth at its inception, and then found itself slowing after the mid-2000s recession. The firm provides consulting services, primarily to government agencies. The owners have brought the business to sales of about $10.5 million in 2012, but revenues declined following that peak year because of cutbacks in government spending and founder Jennifer Madison’s detachment from the business. Even though they recognize that it may not be an ideal time to sell, they are tired of running the business and want to sell now, as long as they can pay off their debts.

This case was researched through multiple interviews with Mark and Jennifer, who provided all of the financial data and background. All financial statements given in the case provide actual CS numbers. The name of the company and the names of the owners have been changed, at their request to disguise the company. At the time this case was written, the owners were in negotiation with a potential bidder, and did not want their names or their company name to be used. Market information and information about comparable companies was researched using publicly available financial data bases.

This case has the potential to be used in a variety of classes, depending on what the instructor wishes to emphasize. The author uses the case as a valuation case in a corporate finance class (suitable for undergraduates or MBAs), allowing students practice in discounted cash flow valuation and comparable multiples valuation. It could be used in an investments class which teaches business valuation, particularly in teaching valuation using market multiples. The case could be used in an entrepreneurial finance class. The author uses this case to illustrate the difficulties of business valuation with messy (but real) data.

This case explores small business valuation and exit strategies for founders. Students can put themselves in the position of small business owners who are ready to exit. Students should value the firm using discounted cash flow and multiples valuation, which includes making assumptions about the future growth of the firm. While there is likely to be reasonable agreement on the “as is” valuation, there may be great variation concerning the assumptions and valuations of the company as it could be. Students can discuss (and implement) adjustments made when using large company comparables to value a much smaller company.