Crude futures in New York were lower on Wednesday, following a record decline in the first quarter

Oil held near $20 a barrel as Saudi Aramco’s output surged above 12 million barrels a day, but Russia said it would refrain from further production hikes.

Crude futures in New York were lower on Wednesday, following a record decline in the first quarter.

While state-run Aramco’s oil supply has surpassed 12 million barrels a day and is ticking higher, Russia said it won’t lift output as it’s not profitable to do so, according to a government official familiar with the country’s plans.

President Trump has said the US will meet with Saudi Arabia and Russia in an attempt to bolster prices.

The market is grappling with a bumper oversupply, while demand is set to fall by as much as 30 million barrels a day in April, according to an executive at the world’s largest independent oil trader.

Any agreement to cut output would likely be too late and would fall short of the loss in consumption, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Industry data signaled that US oil stockpiles are set for their biggest weekly increase since 2017.

“I don’t think they’re going to come to the table for talks just yet, because for both sides, it would require a significant step-down,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “I do think both Russia and Saudi Arabia will be forced to cut back production, not because there’s a deal or they’re talking, but because of market forces.”

Prices:
West Texas Intermediate lost 21 cents to $20.27 a barrel as of 10.35am in London
Brent crude for June settlement fell 4.8 per cent to $25.09
Dated Brent, the benchmark for two-thirds of the world’s real oil supply, was assessed at $17.675 on Tuesday, down 11.5 cents from Monday when it was already the lowest price since 2002

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Required Question

Question 01: Discuss the major drawbacks in the Gulf Countries economy?

Major Communications Ltd., a publicly traded company that specializes in data capture, has been in operation for several years. On October 1, 2019, it had 10 million common shares authorized and 1,570,000 shares issued at an average value of $27 per share. As well, there were 1 million preferred shares authorized, with 220,000 of them issued at $14 per share. During the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020, the company generated net income after taxes of $25,380,000 and other comprehensive loss of $4,550,000. On October 1, 2019, the balance in Retained Earnings was $19,760,000 and the balance in Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income was $940,000. The preferred shares pay an annual dividend of $1.30. During the fiscal year 2020, the following transactions affected shareholders’ equity:

1. On November 1, 2019, 390,000 new common shares were issued at $29 per share.

2. On March 15, 2020, a 5% common stock dividend on the outstanding shares was declared and distributed when the market price was $42 per share.

3. On September 1, 2020, a dividend of $5.35 per common share was declared. The date of record was September 15, 2020, with the date of payment being October 5, 2020.

4. The preferred dividend for the year was declared and paid.

Prepare the statement of changes in shareholders’ equity as at September 30, 2020. (If an amount reduces the account balance then enter with negative sign, e.g. -15,000 or in parenthesis, e.g. (15,000).)

Prepare the shareholders’ equity section of the statement of financial position as at September 30, 2020. (Enter negative answers using either a negative sign preceding the number e.g. -5,125 or parentheses e.g. (5,125).)

Exercise 22-23

Sandhill Corp. was a 30% owner of Teal Company, holding 216,000 shares of Teal’s common stock on December 31, 2019. The investment account had the following entries.

On January 2, 2020, Sandhill sold 108,000 shares of Teal for $3,360,000, thereby losing its significant influence. During the year 2020, Teal experienced the following results of operations and paid the following dividends to Sandhill.

At December 31, 2020, the fair value of Teal shares held by Sandhill is $1,820,000. This is the first reporting date since the January 2 sale.

(b) Compute the carrying amount of the investment in Teal as of December 31, 2020 (prior to any fair value adjustment).

(c) Prepare the adjusting entry on December 31, 2020, applying the fair value method to Sandhill’s long-term investment in Teal Company securities. (Credit account titles are automatically indented when amount is entered. Do not indent manually. If no entry is required, select "No Entry" for the account titles and enter 0 for the amounts.)

1/ At which location below would you most expect to find a year-round desert?

2/ Humid subtropical climates are found principally _____ of continents, roughly between 25° and 40° latitude.

3/ Because of the dry summers of Mediterranean climates, the land only supports growing _____.

4/ The coldest areas in the Northern Hemisphere are found in _____.

In a meeting, the CEO tried to convince every senior executive to do their very best to “maximize the company’s overall profit”. As a CFO, comment on what the CEO said above and illustrate your point with an example.

Accounting job is impacted. what do you do to get a job that field after graduation from the University?

What is my future plan as an accountant? (2 page essay on it).

BOOKS FOR PROGRESS (B4P)

It was May 2019, and Maria Robinson, chief executive officer of Books for Progress (B4P), was evaluating the success of B4P's April textbook drive. In addition to B4P's textbook drives in Southern California, for the first time, Robinson’s team had run a textbook drive through a student group at San Francisco University, CA. This new drive had been successful, and Robinson was considering developing a more permanent presence at San Francisco University.

This new endeavor would involve establishing relationships with student groups, professors, and university administration so that textbook-collection boxes (drop boxes) could be permanently located in central areas on campus. The boxes would then be monitored so the textbooks could be picked up regularly and shipped to the B4P headquarters, where the books would then be donated to schools across South Africa, sold online to fund shipping and implementation costs, donated to student clubs at California universities, or recycled appropriately. While considering this eastward expansion, Robinson also wanted to investigate the viability of undergoing similar expansions to Victoria University, Victoria, CA and the University of Sacramento (U of Sacramento). She wanted to evaluate the financial feasibility of each of these proposed locations before making any final decisions.

History

B4P was Inspired by a trip Robinson took to South Africa in 2017. While teaching at the University of South Africa of Finance and Banking, Robinson noticed a deficit in the educational materials available at the institution. She knew there were thousands of textbooks in California that were no longer being used, which could be redistributed to students in need in South Africa. After graduating from Southern University with an honors degree in business from the Elite Business School (San Diego, CA) in 2017, Robinson partnered with an acquaintance William Hartness to found B4P at the Southern University, CA.

In the beginning, B4P collected textbooks from the Southern University campus and soon expanded to other schools in California. A list of campus locations with B4P drop boxes can be found in Exhibit l. To be more central to the textbook collections, Robinson and her team were in the process of moving B4P's headquarters from Southern University, California to San Francisco. The move would be complete by August 2019, before textbook collections

from the 2019-20 school year would begin. Textbook collections had grown by over 200%, so Robinson was optimistic about B4P's future.

Operations

Post-secondary textbooks were inserted by their owners into drop boxes or given to student representatives through student-club textbook-collection drives on behalf of B4P. California's academic school year ran primarily from September to April, so the majority of textbooks were collected in April. The textbooks were collected and transported to B4P headquarters at a cost of .20 cents 1 per mile and $ 14 per hour for the drivers' wages. Six hundred books could be shipped in a single shipment, although the average shipment consisted of only 250 books. Drivers were located in San Francisco and were compensated for the round trip from the collection school to headquarters, as well as for one hour of time at the collection school. After reaching B4P's warehouse, the books were sorted by warehouse workers. Warehouse workers were paid $ 11 per hour, and they scanned, sorted, shelved, and tracked 30 books in an hour.

25% of the textbooks collected were sorted for listing on Amazon; half of those books listed had been sold at an average price of $40. After a period of time, any listed unsold books were deemed unsalable and were then donated to schools in South Africa. 50% of the textbooks collected were immediately categorized for donation to South Africa. Donated textbooks were shipped to South Africa once 24,000 books (deemed appropriate for donation) had been collected. Shipping costs fluctuated widely due to a variety of factors (e.g. distance from the South African coast and the number of border crossings required) and averaged $ 16,000 per shipment. The remaining 25% of books collected were too out of date to sell online or to donate, so they were recycled. Since textbooks were difficult to recycle responsibly, all textbook recycling was done through an eco-reliable partner in the United States at a recycling cost of $ 15 (including transportation) for every 500 textbooks.

Management Team

B4P had five members on its management team, including Robinson and Hartness, who assumed corporate financial officer roles. These members were employed full time by B4P. All were recent graduates of Western University, McMillen University, or Mary & William University. All five management team members had travelled to Africa to witness B4P's impact on the post-secondary education system, and to learn how they could maximize their contributions on behalf of B4P.

Outcomes

As of May 2019, B4P had donated 24,000 books to South African universities, provided $69,300 in micro loans, donated $37,600 to California non-profits,' and reused or recycled

1 All currency amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified.

37,000 textbooks. In the 2018-19 post-secondary academic year, 88,000 books had been collected. Robinson was proud of the contribution her team was making to their local and global communities, but she was eager to further that impact through more growth and expansion.

Expansion Opportunities

B4P had already executed successful expansions into the Los Angeles & Baja. Eventually, Robinson wanted to expand B4P textbook collections to other states, but she understood that achieving successful local expansion should be the first step. Expansions were executed by forming relationships with student clubs, school administration (staff), and faculty departments and members. Through these relationships, B4P obtained permission to place drop boxes in central locations and hired student ambassadors at each institution to monitor the drop boxes. The majority of student ambassadors were volunteers, but B4P paid one student ambassador at each school an annual salary of up to $ 1,750.

Any expansion to a new location would follow the same collection process, and textbook collections would be similarly shipped to B4P's warehouse. In order to manage additional student ambassadors and relationships with collection schools, Robinson planned to hire a campus community manager if the eastern expansion was pursued. The campus community manager would work full time and earn an annual salary of $ 40,000. 75% of the manager's time would be spent on managing the eastern expansion, and 25% would be spent on managing existing drop box locations where B4P presence was lacking. Robinson expected that historical proportions of textbooks sold, donated, and recycled would be the same for all new locations. An expansion would be considered successful if B4P could break even and increase its exposure and book donations; however, Robinson and Hartness would consider an expansion a financial success if B4P could earn a 5% profit.

B4P's new warehouse would have the capacity to sort and store textbooks from all three proposed universities. However, Hartness was concerned about potential roadblocks to transporting textbooks from the collection universities to B4P's warehouse. The textbooks would need to be stored at the collection universities until enough books had been collected to warrant the driver's pickup time. If pickups took longer than anticipated, the driver might need to stay overnight in the region due to regulatory requirements. Hartness was unsure how this constraint would affect the financial feasibility of the expansion, so she wanted to ensure that any expansion that B4P pursued would have a healthy margin of safety.

Victoria University

1
Victoria was located in Fresno, approximately 330 miles east of San Francisco . Victoria was

home to 17,400 full-time, undergraduate students and over 4,000 graduate and post-graduate students. These students studied at one of the university's six facilities, the largest of which was the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Victoria was known for its school spirit, its long history, and its attractive waterfront campus.

Victoria student government, the Alma Mater Society (AMS), included the Campus Activities Commission (CAC). CAC was responsible for running campus events and programs to promote school spirit and social awareness (including mental-health awareness initiatives) at Victoria. If B4P decided to start an on-campus textbook collection at Victoria, Robinson thought CAC would make a good partner. B4P had hosted a textbook-collection drive in April 2019 with AMS members and potential campus ambassadors. Based on this experience, Robinson was optimistic about Victoria students' support of on-campus drop boxes, so she estimated that 12,250 books could be collected in the 2019-20 school year at Victoria.

Brownstone University

2 Brownstone was located just south of Riverside, 520 miles east of San Francisco . The

university enrolled 24,100 undergraduate students and 3,700 graduate students. Brownstone was known for its interdisciplinary and flexible degree program options, a global focus, and its self-contained campus that fostered a sense of campus community. Brownstone offered more than 65 degree programs across a wide range of disciplines.

Brownstone's undergraduate students were represented by the Brownstone University Student's Association (CUSA). CUSA did not have a committee similar to CAC at Victoria, but CUSA regularly funded and supported over 250 student clubs. Since B4P had not yet performed any on-campus marketing at Brownstone, Robinson estimated that 5,500 books could be collected from Brownstone in B4P's first year.

The University of Sacramento

Located in California's capital city of Sacramento, U of Sacramento was the largest bilingual

(English-French) university in the world, and it was situated 540 miles east of San

3
Francisco . The campus was also within walking distance of California's government

buildings on Capitol Hill. The school was known for its co-operative education program, bilingualism, and research. Over 36,000 undergraduate, 4,500 masters and 1,900 doctorate and post-graduate students studied on U of Sacramento's campus. At U of Sacramento, the

1 Driving from Victoria to the B4P headquarters took approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes. 2 Driving from Brownstone to San Francisco took approximately 5 hours.
3 Driving from Univ. of Sacramento to San Francisco took approximately 5 hours.

largest faculty was social science, which registered almost 25% of the student population. The balance of the students studied at one of U of Sacramento's nine other facilities.

The Student Federation of the University of Sacramento (SFUO), the university's student council, managed over 250 clubs and organized awareness campaigns, philanthropic initiatives, and on-campus social events. The federation was committed to advocating for affordable post-secondary education in California; therefore, Robinson believed that B4P's mission to support education in developing regions would align with the interests of U of Sacramento's students. Since U of Sacramento was larger than Brownstone, Robinson estimated that 12,250 books could be collected from U of Sacramento in B4P's first year.

Decision

B4P had already established partnerships with students at Victoria while conducting its April textbook drive, so Robinson was confident that B4P would be able to do the same at Brownstone and U of Sacramento. It would, however, take time to gain permission to place the drop boxes around each campus. Robinson was open to expanding to all three schools eventually, but she wanted to select one school to expand to first, if at all. This approach would give Robinson and her team time to improve the textbook collection and transportation model without expanding too quickly. Since B4P management would not be able to visit campuses very often, it would be important to hire a dedicated team of volunteer campus ambassadors. Robinson was anxious to make a decision about her next steps so that B4P's team would have time to place drop boxes on the campuses during the first semester of the 2019-20 academic year.

EXHIBIT 1: CAMPUS LOCATIONS WITH B4P DROP BOXES

l. Western University

2. Shawe College

3. Mary & William University

4. Mary & William University — Brantford Campus

5. University of Waterford

6. University of Gulliver

7. Shenandoah College

8. McMillen University

9. Northeast College

10. Branford University

11. Humboldt College

12. University of Sacramento – St. George Campus

13. York University

Required:

1. Qualitatively, what are the pros and cons of expansion?

2. Qualitatively, what are the pros and cons of partnering with Victoria University, Brownstone University, and the University of Sacramento?

3. Identify the fixed and variable costs relevant to an expansion.

4. Calculate how many textbooks B4P would need to collect to break even at each of the three universities: Victoria, Brownstone, and U of Sacramento.

5. As Maria Robinson, what would you do? Defend your decision using your analysis.

Responses should be typed in paragraph format and use proper grammar and punctuation. Recommendations must be thorough and fully supported by evidence from the case study. Responses to questions 1 -5 above require at least one page of content or more. Therefore, the case study paper should be, at a minimum, five pages of content, excluding calculations and tables. Please be sure to include all tables, calculations, and analysis in an Appendix to the report.

In 2015, Forbes magazine listed Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, as the richest person in the United States. His personal wealth was estimated to be $76 billion. Given that there were about 322 million people living in the United States that year, how much could each person have received if Gates’s wealth had been divided equally among the population of the United States? (Hint: A billion is a 1 followed by 9 zeros while a million is a 1 followed by six zeros.)

Which group in each of the following pairs has the higher poverty rate: (a) children or people age 65 or over? (b) African Americans or foreign-born noncitizens? (c) Asians or Hispanics?

Glenn Grimes is the founder and president of Heartland Construction, a real estate development venture. The business transactions during February while the company was being organized are listed as follows.

Required:

a. Prepare journal entries to record the above transactions. Select the appropriate account titles from the following chart of accounts.

b. Indicate the effects of each transaction on the company's assets, liabilities, and owners' equity for the month of February. The Feb. 1 transaction is provided for you.

Feb. 1 = Cash $500,000 (assets)