Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

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Category: Financial Acct

  • Sergio Marchionne Makes an Offer Banks Can’t Refuse

    Weekend May 25, 2013 Sergio Marchionne is a Canadian Chartered Accountant. He became head of Fiat ten years ago. Now he is putting together a deal which will bring Fiat and Chrysler together as a company.  His experience and expertise as an Chartered (the Canadian term, in the US we are Certified) Accountant is certainly valuable…

  • Dell Talks his Prospects Down

    Weekend March 30 2013 Dell has now made a 274 page filing with the SEC talking down future prospects for the company. As Carey Kingsley noted in ACCT 3311 class, one would think a guy as smart as Mike Dell would have counted the votes first! Now even the CFO says they are fighting for market…

  • Mike Dell – Careful What You Wish For !

    Thursday March 7 2013 As one student observed you would think Mike Dell would have counted the votes before trying to take the company public, apparently not. Southeastern Asset  the largest shareholder says the price is too low that firm might try to buy Dell and there are rumors HP is looking at the deal…

  • The Apple Cash Hoard

    Wednesday Feb 21 2013 Apple has $137 B cash on its balance sheet. Prepare to sound off in ACCT 3311 class this on this topic. Do nothing Declare a one time dividend Buy Back Stock Split the stock Offer to buy Dell for $15  just for spite…..just kidding on this one….

  • Wal Mart Earnings

    thursday Feb 21 2013 WMT  reported earnings this week. We study e/s in ACCT 3312. this article is a good example of why that calculation is important. What factors have impacted WMT earnings this past month?  Would you have expected that? The answer is that the return to the normal payroll tax rate on Social…

  • Office Depot to buy Office Max

    Thursday Feb 21 2013 Office Depot  let their merger slip in an announcement. We simply have an over abundance of office supply stores with these two plus Staples. When I moved to San Marcos in 1999 all three were there in a town of  35,000 people.  In these deals you never want to be an…

  • Revolving Door at the SEC

    Weekend Feb 17 2013 All levels of government particularly at the top are staffed by individuals who don Harry Potter's invisibility Cloak and appear and disappear from the public to the private sector. Here is a report on how even low level staffers at the SEC find lobbying jobs in the afterlife of SEC employment. Generals and…

  • RAX Hits an Air Pocket or Do Earnings Matter?

    Thursday Feb 14 2013 At our last faculty meeting Prof Jim Hackard introduced a student who had participated in a stock analysis contest. The subject was RAX Rackspace. The conclusion was that RAX was worth $80, may be but not for long as we discover this week. This is an excellent example of just how…

  • Dell’s Third Largest Shareholder Objects

    Wed Feb 13 2013 T Rowe Price objects to the sale for $13.65 a share. That makes the number one and three size shareholders opposed. This is shaping up like a real fight. As I said in class, please read these articles as they demonstrate a lot of what we will study in ACCT 3312 on the…

  • A Proxy War at Dell?

    Tuesday Feb 12 2013 Dell's largest shareholder  opposes the $13.65 buyout. Please read this article. A proxy is the right to vote someone else's shares. Buyouts or take overs often feature a battle for proxies.Each side may take out whole page ads in major newspapers explaining why they are right and why you should vote…