Business Finance Homework Help

1. Display and Graph the Pitney Bowes Company’s last three years Sales $, Gross Profit $, Net Profit $ Gross Margin %, and Debt to Equity Ratio. Analyze what you see and describe at least three reasons behind what drove these results. (see analysis clues of what effects ratios below and use bulleted list to answer)

using one table and 5 graphs to answer following questions:

Sales (Use sales as a benchmark for all income statement ratios)

Did the company raise the prices this year compared to the prior year?

Did the company add more stores? Where?

Did the company buy another company?

Did the company launch a new product or product line?

What product sales were growing in the company? And we’re some slowing or declining?

What markets are growing?

Did the company change their business model? an example is Netflix going from shipping and mailing DVDs to streaming.

Gross Profit

Did the company incur larger costs for its raw materials?

Did suppliers raise their prices?

Did the company increase inventory significantly?

Did the mix of products sold, have lower-margin products growing faster?

Net Profit

What did management do to spend significantly more or less in any expense category compared to the prior year?

Did salaries go up significantly? That may be a bad sign

Did advertising expenditures go up significantly? This could be good or investment in growth in the future.

Did depreciation expense grow significantly? This could be good as an indicator of investing in new plants equipment or buildings.

Was there any one-time write-offs that will not recur again?

Gross margin

Did the gross margin change significantly from year to year? If so why? Look to gross profit for a clue.

Debt to Equity ratio (What is the industry standard?)

What change from year to year?

Did debt go up or down? Less debt is generally good

Did the company increase Equity or decrease equity? more Equity is generally good.

(There are examples and format of table and graphs – upload file.)

2. One Recommendation of the strategy to Pitney Bowes company based on the above analysis (200 words).