Question 1:
Part A: Financial Management

(a) Which business form has the following characteristics:

• Separate legal entity
• Liability of investors limited to amount of investment
• Allows separation of ownership and day-to-day management
• Taxed as a separate entity

(b) If you buy shares of Coca-Cola on the secondary market,

(c) Jennifer is your oldest child. Tomorrow is her 6th birthday. You plan to set up a savings plan for Jennifer's university education. You will deposit $4,000, tomorrow and every year up to and including her 17th birthday. How much will be available to Jennifer on her 18th birthday? Assume the relevant interest rate is 3.3% per year. Write your answer to the nearest cent.

HealthNut University’s Benefit Program

This activity is important because as a manager, you must be able to determine the most effective benefits to provide to your employees. There are many variables that impact the effectiveness of employee benefits. Evaluating your employees’ preferences, needs, the industry best practices and what the organization can afford are just a few.

The goal of this activity is to demonstrate your understanding of the various types of benefits available to offer employees as well as the regulations that may apply in your organization.

Read the case of the new benefit program at HealthNut University and select the best option for each scenario provided.

The employees at HealthNut University (HNU) have not seen a change in their benefits offered in several years. Meanwhile, the organization is experiencing unprecedented growth in the demand for its services thereby needing to ensure they are able to retain their valuable employees. HNU currently has 482 employees when combining administration, staff, and faculty members in the United States. Mr. Reuben, the Director of HR, has received approval to create a new benefit program for the employees.

Mr. Reuben begins by collecting both benchmark data from the industry best practices as well as conducting a survey of its current employees to identify what they value in a benefit program. While Mr. Reuben understands he will not be able to provide for every need, he knows the options need to be narrowed down to those the company’s employees desire the most.

The survey revealed the employees greatly value time off in various forms as well as an interest in long term benefits. Therefore, in addition to ensuring HealthNut University offers the legally mandated benefits, Mr. Reuben begins creating the new benefit program for HNU.

One of the most important issues for Mr. Reuben to address beyond the desires of the employees for particular types of benefits is that of ensuring each benefit policy is legally compliant. Which law/regulation applies to the benefits the company may utilize?

If you are a diversified investor in Facebook, which of the following types of risk would you include in your discount rate?

• A. The risk that Mark Zuckerberg will stay on as CEO
• B. The risk that new privacy laws will restrict data gathering and access
• C. The risk that users will find a different social media platform to spend their time on.
• D. The risk that a global economic slowdown will affect how much companies spend on advertising
• E. The risk that Mark Zuckerberg will leave as CEO

This needs to be a python3 code

Write a program that prompts the user like this: “Currency to convert to U.S. dollars: e = Euros, c= Chinese Yuan, r = Indian Rupees, b = Bitcoin: ”. Then depending on which letter the user enters, the program displays “Amount of Euros/Yuan/Rupees/Bitcoin to convert: ”. (Note: the second prompt should only name the one currency the user asked to convert, not all four currencies.) After the user enters the amount, the program displays “In U.S. dollars, that is $N”, (N is the amount converted to U.S. dollars).
Conversion rates (from Google, Aug 25, 2019):
• 1 Euro = 1.11 US dollar • 1 Chinese yuan = 0.14 US dollar • 1 Indian rupee = 0.014 US dollar • 1 Bitcoin = 10283.00 US dollar

Cookie Creations is gearing up for the winter holiday season. During the month of December 2020, the following transactions occur.

The trial balance from November is shown below.

As of December 31, Cookie Creations’ year-end, the following adjusting entry data are provided.

Using the information gathered from above and from the November trial balance, do the following: journal Entry, Post December Transactions, Prepare a trial balance at 12/31/2020, Prepare adjusting entries for the month of December, post adjusting entries for the month of December, prepare an adjusted trial balance as of 12/31/2020, prepare an income statement for the 2-month period ending 12/31/2020, prepare a retained earning statement for the 2 month period ending 12/31/2020, prepare a classified balance sheet as of 12/31/2020, prepare a closing entry as of December 31, 2020, post closing entries as of 12/31/2020, and prepare a post closing trial balance

XYZ is a calendar-year corporation that began business on January 1, 2020. For the year, it reported the following information in its current-year audited income statement. Notes with important tax information are provided below. Use Exhibit 16-6.

1. XYZ owns 30 percent of the outstanding Hobble Corp. (HC) stock. Hobble Corp. reported $1,000,000 of income for the year. XYZ accounted for its investment in HC under the equity method, and it recorded its pro rata share of HC’s earnings for the year. HC also distributed a $200,000 dividend to XYZ.
2. Of the $20,000 interest income, $5,000 was from a City of Seattle bond, $7,000 was from a Tacoma City bond, $6,000 was from a fully taxable corporate bond, and the remaining $2,000 was from a money market account.
3. This gain is from equipment that XYZ purchased in February and sold in December (i.e., it does not qualify as §1231 gain).
4. This includes total officer compensation of $2,500,000 (no one officer received more than $1,000,000 compensation).
5. This amount is the portion of incentive stock option compensation that was expensed during the year (recipients are officers).
6. XYZ actually wrote off $27,000 of its accounts receivable as uncollectible.
7. Tax depreciation was $1,900,000.
8. In the current year, XYZ did not make any actual payments on warranties it provided to customers.
9. XYZ made $500,000 of cash contributions to qualified charities during the year.
10. On July 1 of this year XYZ acquired the assets of another business. In the process, it acquired $300,000 of goodwill. At the end of the year, XYZ wrote off $30,000 of the goodwill as impaired.
11. XYZ expensed all of its organizational expenditures for book purposes. XYZ expensed the maximum amount of organizational expenditures allowed for tax purposes.
12. The other expenses do not contain any items with book–tax differences.
13. This is an estimated tax provision (federal tax expense) for the year. Assume that XYZ is not subject to state income taxes.

Estimated tax information:

XYZ made four equal estimated tax payments totaling $360,000 ($90,000 per quarter). For purposes of estimated tax liabilities, assume XYZ was in existence in 2019 and that in 2019 it reported a tax liability of $500,000. During 2020, XYZ determined its taxable income at the end of each of the four quarters as follows:

Finally, assume that XYZ is not a large corporation for purposes of estimated tax calculations. (Do not round intermediate calculations. Round your answers to the nearest dollar amount.)

e. Determine the quarters for which XYZ is subject to underpayment of estimated tax penalties. (Round "Annualization Factor" for Fourth quarter to 2 decimal places.)

Greg Maddox Company constructed a building at a cost of $2,200,000 and occupied it beginning in January 2001. It was estimated at that time that its life would be 40 years, with no salvage value. In January 2021, a new roof was installed at a cost of $300,000, and it was estimated then that the building would have a useful life of 25 years from that date. The cost of the old roof was $160,000. Instructions a. What amount of depreciation should have been charged annually from the years 2001 to 2020? (Assume straight-line depreciation.) b. What entry should be made in 2021 to record the replacement of the roof? c. Prepare the entry in January 2021 to record the revision in the estimated life of the building, if necessary. d. What amount of depreciation should be charged for the year 2021?

The Maryland Fisheries Service releases an annual Oyster Population Status Report that includes an oyster biomass index, catch landings data, and mortality rates. During the 2019-2020 season, the researchers obtained an oyster sample from 43 beds out of approximately 1000 oyster beds to assess the health of the stock.

Marine researchers want to be reasonably certain that the true proportion of Chesapeake Bay oysters caught at market size is at least 30 percent, the minimum threshold for qualifying the stock as “restored.” They found that the average proportion of market-size oysters in their sample was 0.39.

a) Calculate a 90 percent confidence interval for the population proportion of market-size oysters in the Chesapeake Bay in the 2019-20 season. Use a picture of the probability distribution in your answer.

b) Calculate a 99 percent confidence interval for the proportion of market-size oysters in the Chesapeake Bay in the 2019-20season. Use a picture of the probability distribution in your answer

c) Put in words what the 99% confidence interval tells us.

d) Conduct a hypothesis test with a significance of α=0.05 to determine if researchers can reasonably classify the Chesapeake Bay oyster stock

McDonald’s Corporation

When most firms were struggling in 2008, McDonald’s increased its revenues from $22.7 billion in 2007 to $23.5 billion in 2008. Headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois McDonald’s net income nearly doubled during that time from $2.4 billion to $4.3 billion—quite impressive. Fortune magazine in 2009 rated McDonald’s as their 16th “Most Admired Company in the World” in terms of their management and performance.

McDonald’s added 650 new outlets in 2009 when many restaurants struggled to keep their doors open. McDonald’s low prices and expanded menu items have attracted millions of new customers away from sit-down chains and independent eateries. Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonald’s, says, “We do so well because our strategies have been so well planned out.” McDonald’s served about 60 million customers every day in 2009, 2 million more than in 2008. Nearly 80 percent of McDonald’s are run by franchisees (or affiliates).

McDonald’s in 2009 spent $2.1 billion to remodel many of its 32,000 restaurants and build new ones at a more rapid pace than in recent years. This is in stark contrast to most restaurant chains that are struggling to survive, laying off employees, closing restaurants, and reducing expansion plans. McDonald's restaurants are in 120 countries. Going out to eat is one of the first activities that customers cut in tough times. A rising U.S. dollar is another external factor that hurts McDonald’s. An internal weakness of McDonald’s is that the firm now offers upscale coffee drinks like lattes and cappuccinos in over 7,000 locations just as budget conscious consumers are cutting back on such extravagances.

About half of McDonald’s 31,000 locations are outside the United States. But McDonald’s top management team says everything the firm does is for the long term. McDonald’s for several years referred to their strategic plan as “Plan to Win.” This strategy has been to increase sales at existing locations by improving the menu, remodeling dining rooms, extending hours, and adding snacks. The company has avoided deep price cuts on its menu items. McDonald’s was only one of three large U.S. firms that saw its stock price rise in 2008.

The other two firms were Wal-Mart and Family Dollar Stores.

Other strategies being pursued currently by McDonald’s include replacing gasoline-powered cars with energy-efficient cars, lowering advertising rates, halting building new outlets on street corners where nearby development shows signs of weakness, boosting the firm’s coffee business, and improving the drive-through windows to increase sales and efficiency.

McDonald’s receives nearly two thirds of its revenues from outside the United States. The company has 14,000 U.S. outlets and 18,000 outlets outside the United States. McDonald’s feeds 58 million customers every day. The company operates Hamburger University in suburban Chicago. McDonald's reported that first quarter 2009 profits rose 4 percent and same-store sales rose 4.3 percent across the globe. Same-store sales in the second quarter of 2009 were up another 4.8 percent.

Questions:

1.      Which theory of organizational adaptation is applied at McDonald's (Theories to choose from: Institution Theory, Strategic choice perspective, and Organizational Learning Theory) ? Discuss.

2.      Conduct the environmental scanning of McDonald's through SWOT analysis.

3.      Discuss any 2 strategies used at McDonald's ( Strategies to choose from : Corporate strategy, Business Strategy, and Functional Strategy) . Elaborate.

4.      Under which strategic type (according to Miles and Snow) can McDonald’s be classified? Elaborate.