A firm is currently paying $2.75 each year in dividends. Recently sales have declined and the board of directors has recommended reducing their dividends in the next few years. Shareholders have agreed to a 10% reduction in dividends each year, over the next 4 years. After this four-year period, the firm’s prospects are expected to improve. Starting in year 5, the firm will increase dividends by 5% each year, forever. If shareholders require a 12% return on this stock and the stock is currently selling for $20.00, would you be interested in purchasing this stock? Why or why not?

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

Diamond motor car company produces some of the most luxurious and expensive cars in the world. typically, only a single dealership is authorized to sell its cars in certain major cities. in less populous areas, diamond authorizes a single dealer for an entire state or region. the manufacturer of diamond automobiles is using a(n) distribution strategy for its product.

You own a nonunion company with 93 nonexempt employees. all of these employ- ees pack books into boxes for shipment to customers throughout the united states. because of wide differences in performance, you have decided to try performance appraisal, something never done before. until now, you have given every worker the same size increase. now you want to measure performance and reward the best performers with bigger increases. without any further information, which of the five types of appraisal formats do you think would be most appropriate? justify your answer. do you anticipate any complaints, or other comments, from employees after you implement your new system?