Hi,

I am back, this time to talk about the inter-module assignments and also the reading and the classes for the next session. 

Basically as mentioned we completed the following sessions in the last module at Fontainebleau, Financial Accounting, OB, Price and Markets, Uncertanity Data and Judgement, 

We already did a final exam on Price and Markets and Uncertainty Data and Judgements, and OB. 

Financial Accounting has a take home assignment - an 8 pager. We have had to compare 2 companies, one of which is where I work presently. We have to pull out and compare the results of the last 3-5 years between the two companies.Getting the information was the easy part, putting them together to be able to compare them was the more difficult part. Although companies use the same Accounting Standards, they have subtle differences in their entire process of listing and showing some of the items. 

These items can be such that Extra ordinary write off before taxes, and deffered taxes, or deffered income., unfortunately some of them are were easy to understand, the others not so.

I had to decipher all of this information and bring them to a single Excel Sheet and then i chose to use the standard available ratios to be able to compare them, these included the ROE, the Current Ratio, the Fixed Asset per employee, and other such to be able to see how they compared, it was a very interesting and fun course and also a great paper which I enjoyed working on, 

The next paper was the OB paper which is a partner assignment which my classmate(from france) and me worked on together, 

Our paper was titled "Will the Disney Magic Shine Again?" the course requirement was to be a paper comparing a recently successful or a recently failed company, we had to compare a similar company in the industry maybe (and for more points) in another country. We chose Disney beacuse Disney as a company and as a fantasy has always been a pet of mine and also I have always been studying and reading about Disney, even since my Undergraduate when I did a class and a paper on the 'Cultural Imperialism' of Disney, 

So Disney it was, but we were unable to find another company to compare this to since there is no other company which can be compared (according to me atleast) to Disney!

So we compared the theme parks in the many countries, Hong Kong, Pars, Tokyo, Florida... We looked and analyzed Disney as a company through the Political Lens, the Cultural Lens, the Strategic Lens, and the Historical Lens, all of which we were able to construct as there was such a wealth of information available publicly and also in the form of case studies already done by many previous MBA students from other schools...

 This entire paper just fuelled my passion and my love and my quest for more 'Disney Magic', and also satisfied some more questions which have been hanging in my head for a while now, this was fun reading as well as fun work, 

The next one is for Strategy which is basically to do with thean analysis of the company we are working with presently, basically using Michael Porters 5 rules, and other such rules which Professor Zemsky has made easy for us to use and follow by giving us some templates and also cases which we had covered and worked together when we were doing our classes. 

I compared the Renewable Energy Industry, in particular the Hydro Power Generation in India. this was interesting and also revealing as i looked at industry analysis. 

We are going to continue the Strategy class in the next session, the next session will be about the analysis of strategy from a company perspective, and from a competitive strategy analysis.

I am looking forward to this session. 

There are two classes which were going to cover in the next week at Fontainebleau, Corporate Finance and Strategy. 

Corporate Finance is basically a text book of reading which we were handed out before we broke out our previous session, this book has 14 chapters which are well spelt out and also very good to study, we have to stdy them, not just read them like a story book, and there are exercises at the back of the chapters which we have to complete so a light reading is not what this is...

There is also a folder filled with cases and other material which has been taken from better sources and other cases which relate to our entire class, topics such as  Dividend Policies of companies and which ones are the ones that have worked and ones which we need to read and study as cases of 'not to do',

There is another study and more material covering the issuing of securities by companies such as Initial Public Issues and also Rights Issues and lastly the Repurchase of shares by companies, this information is accompanied by suitable  cases to support the information and the reading, also to allow us to make suitable judgement calls on our own.

We have studied a detailed case on the Easy Company which is engaged into the many diversified businesses of Airline and Cruise, and Internet, Car Rental, and such, and we looked at this case from the perspective of understanding when a company becomes or looks to diversify and why, and when it makes sense to diversify and how the market responds to such moves by the companies as well as how the market values such business strategies.

Another very interesting case I have just completed and read for the Strategy class is on Starbucks. This was a comprehensive case which we are going to discuss and the questions have already been given to us which we can read and study and also answer as part of our class discussion, 

I find the entire concept of reading and also learning in such a systematic way very fascinating....I am reading also another case provided to me which is on the Dividend policy of Apple Inc, and why they have discontinued their dividends for a few years now.

I find the repurchase of shares particularly interesting as the cases and also the books have showed me that of all the companies which did share buybacks in the yar 1999, almost all of them did so because they probably  had excess cash flows from operations and were looking at buying back their shares cause they were undervalued, they were hoping to increase shareholder value by the reduction of the number of outstanding shares, the market actually perceived this move of theirs in a  negative manner and they actaully lost value, hence it is evident that there is a lot to learn and a lot that these companies are able to teach us, 

I am happy that I am being given the opporunity to learn and also reaseach in such detail. 

The Strategy reading for the next session is not really any kind of text book, there are exerpts from books which have been provided to us in a folder, and a whole bunch of case studies, I enjoy dissecting these case studies. 

Shredding them  for all the information that i can squeeze out of them, and then trying to co-relate all the information from all the other cases and all the other classes, i find this excellent and a lot of learning and reading all compressed into a couple of pages in a da.

So that covers the basics of what I have been up to and doing since I have returned in November 2008. That is other than the day job which I also have...

I am looking forward to the next session which begins on the 5th of January up until the 10 of January, and then there are 2 finals which are Finance and Stategy, and then a bunch of us have planned to have a night out in paris (maybe)...

So I return to Singapore on the 12th....

Looking forward to the classes, meeting my friends, the intense discussions and the reading and the studying and COLD COLD weather this time of the year at Fontainebleau!!!!

Looking forward to meeting with Charlie and with Sven and sitting in classrooms once again, 

Will have pictures as well as much more information this time for all of you who are possibly going to read this at some point.

Maybe even have some of my blog which I will write from there.

Hope all of you have a great start to your 2009, its gonna be a great year!!!

My Best to you all, 

Vivek