Bernard Lester: Investment Alternatives Benchmarking

Investment Alternatives Benchmarking for Bernard Lester

University of Phoenix

MBA 540 Maximizing Shareholder Wealth

December 3, 2007

Investment Alternatives Benchmarking for Bernard Lester

Electronics are something that many people find difficult to live without. People talk on their cell phones while driving their vehicles and listening to the radio with their laptop computer in the heated seat next to them. Electronics have seemingly taken over what was once a simple way of life. Lester Electronics Inc. (LEI), a company that generates over $500 million a year, has become very successful domestically providing electronic components that people depend on. While company profits are up, Lester Electronics Inc. finds itself in a position of mounting global competition against larger, more economically robust companies and now must make some very important decisions regarding which company LEI should merge with or sell itself to in order to remain economically viable. Through research, Team B has benchmarked eight companies who have encountered similar issues. The benchmarked issues are: internal and external growth strategies, the use of working capital management strategies to maximize shareholder wealth, challenges of cross-border growth strategies, assessing organizational performance using financial statement and ratio analysis and the role of portfolio management in the allocation of corporate resources.

Course Concepts

Internal and External Growth Strategies

Returns are a measurement of how well an investment performed for a company or an individual. There are two types of growth strategies that contribute to returns in this context: internal and external growth strategies. Internal strategies tend to rely on actions such as hiring more employees, growing the customer base, opening company-owned locations, or developing products through internal research and development. External growth strategies tend to focus on meeting growth objectives by...