Mercury Athletic Case Essay

West Coast Fashions. Inc. ( WCF ) . a big interior decorator and seller of men’s and women’s branded dress late announced programs for a strategic reorganisation. Active Gear. Inc. ( AG ) . a in private held footwear company. was contemplating an acquisition chance. John Liedtke. the caput of concern development for AG. was interested in a WCF subordinate. The subordinate that Liedtke and AG intended to get was Mercury Athletic ( MA ) . a footwear company. Liedtke thought geting Mercury would approximately duplicate AG’s gross. increase its purchase with contract makers and spread out its presence with cardinal retail merchants and distributers. In order to supply a solid recommendation to Liedtke. farther analysis must be performed.

Market Overview

The dress or footwear industry is extremely competitory with low growing. The market is influenced by manner tendencies. monetary value. quality and manner. Companies can cut down hazard factors by non following manner tendencies which equates to efficient and effectual stock list direction and lost net income chances.

Active Gear

AG is a comparatively little athletic and insouciant footwear company. It has one-year grosss of $ 470. 3M ( 42 % of grosss came from athletic places ) . and $ 60. 4M of runing income. Projecting a shadow over these Numberss are AG’s typical rivals. AG’s typical rival has one-year gross revenues over $ 1. 0B. Because of Chinese fabrication contract consolidations. AG’s size was going a disadvantage due to low purchasing power vs. rivals. AG’s initial focal point was to bring forth and market high-quality forte places for golf and tennis participants. AG was among the first companies to offer stylish. walking. hike and boating footwear. Over the old ages. the firm’s athletic places had evolved from high-performance footwear to athletic manner wear with a authoritative image.

The firm’s traditional casual places besides offered authoritative styling. but were aimed at a broader. more mainstream market. AG’s mark demographic was urban and suburbanites. runing from 25-45 in age. AG’s distribution channels consisted of independent retail merchants. departmental shops. and jobbers. AG excluded large box retail merchants and price reduction shops. AG focused on merchandises that didn’t follow manner tendencies. ensuing in a elongated merchandise lifecycle. This concern theoretical account led to more efficient and effectual supply concatenation and operating direction. However. because they opted for the safe path it halted the company’s gross revenues and growing chance.

Mercury Athletic

Mercury Athletic was purchased by WCF from its laminitis Daniel Fiore. Fiore was forced to sell the company after running it for over 35 old ages. due to wellness jobs. Due to a strategic reorganisation. the program called for the divestiture of MA and other “non-core” WCF assets. MA had grosss of $ 431. 1M and an EBITDA of $ 51. 8M

Merchandises were distributed to departmental and price reduction shops
It had two merchandise lines- athletic and insouciant footwear
Target market of both work forces and adult females
Shoes popularity grew in the utmost athleticss market
MA developed an operating substructure. leting direction to rapidly accommodate to alterations in client gustatory sensations with merchandise specifications. 1. Is Mercury an appropriate mark for AG? Why or why non?

Let me walk you through some qualitative considerations before doing my recommendation.

Strategic considerations:

AG and MA are both viing in the athletic and insouciant footwear industry. Acquiring MA could take to economic systems of graduated table and range through fabrication and distribution webs. severally. Geting MA- AG would be less affected by the Chinese fabrication contract consolidation. due to increased purchasing powers. AG could potentially revive and net income from geting Mercury’s women’s merchandise line. Geting MA will duplicate AG’s one-year gross.

Counter arguments-

AG and MA mark demographics could non bring forth company synergisms MA is manner trendy. hence prone to put on the line outside of AG’s steady concern theoretical account Company civilizations could non fit

2. Review the projections by Liedtke. Are they allow? How would you urge modifying them? In order to happen if the projections are sensible. you need a starting point. Using jutting growing rates and EBIT should bespeak if Liedtke’s information is solid. Referencing the Free Cash Flow and Terminal Value tabular arraies ( found below ) . I will be able to bring forth an sentiment of Liedtke’s projections. Year to twelvemonth growing rates are highly volatile. normalising in 2010.

The negative rate could mean that in 2007 they are projecting to stop a merchandise line. The swing back to a positive growing rate could be indicant of AG leveraging its economic systems of graduated table and range. while administering their merchandise lines through large box retail merchants. EBIT has been projected to bit by bit increase. which looks to be on par with industry norms. It is sensible to state that Liedtke’s projections decently reflect AG’s concern theoretical account. post-acquisition.

3. See tabular arraies and computations below

4. Make you see the value you obtained as conservative or aggressive? Why? From my analysis. the value I obtained seemed to be aggressive against the information provided. Referencing the tabular arraies below:

Terminal or Enterprise Value is High

Synergies are excluded from fiscal analysis
Worsening gross growing

5. How would you analyse possible synergisms or other beginnings of value non reflected in Liedtke’s base premise? In order to analyse possible synergisms. I would look at both companies’ operations. Get downing from where they beginning their stuffs to administering their concluding merchandise are all possibilities of operational synergisms ( purchasing power. distribution channels. stock list direction. etc… ) . Fiscal synergisms would include uniting grosss and cost benefits. which translate to increasing bottom line.

Company civilization matching could besides go debatable.

Quantitative Analysis
Net Working Capital

Free Cash Flow

WACC

Terminal Value

Evaluation

NPV. IRR and Payback Period

Decision

Net present value of future hard currency flows equates to a positive $ 0. 2M. Internal rate of return or IRR is the involvement rate at which the net present value of all the hard currency flows from a undertaking or investing equal nothing. The IRR of this acquisition is 28 % . Having a positive NPV and an IRR that well outweighs the price reduction and hazard free rate- suggests that this acquisition should be pursued. In decision. AG should get MA.