Teaching note for product 9B14B003.

This case is a supplement to Maxim Off Highway Axle Business: An Acquisition Opportunity (A).

In 2012, the Ontario provincial government announced that after 41 years in operation, the iconic Toronto tourist attraction Ontario Place would be shut down. The immediate closing would save the province and tax payers an estimated $20 million a year and eliminate at least 48 full-time jobs and 600 summer positions in the process. Ontario Place attendance had dropped sharply from an average of three million visitors during the early 1980’s, to just .....more

Teaching note for product 9B12M087.

The president of Zeus Strategic Investments Inc. was reviewing an acquisition opportunity related to a spin-off of a division of Maxim Automotive. This opportunity was exactly the type of thing that excited the president — a non-strategic business unit within a large industrial organization that faced significant challenges in forming into a standalone business. The president felt that it provided an excellent opportunity to create significant value .....more

The director of the Paediatric Orthopaedic Clinic (the Clinic) at the Children's Hospital of Western Ontario has a better understanding of the process flow and bottlenecks at the Clinic and also has ideas for some possible solutions. The director can turn her thoughts to addressing a recurring issue raised by the hospital's management - how the Clinic's performance should be measured. The director pondered the mission of the hospital, .....more

In 2002, U.S. lawmakers quickly passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the wake of several high profile bankruptcies and the revelation of accounting irregularities and corporate fraud at several American corporations, such as WorldCom, Adelphia Communications and Enron. Did the main benefits of SOX - gains in shareholder confidence that increased equity market participation and liquidity - justify these costs? Do the benefits of SOX for corporate .....more

Credit Valley Golf and Country Club (Credit Valley), a private golf course, would be having their annual general meeting very soon. The general manager of Credit Valley and the superintendent felt that the most pressing issue was a change to the method of irrigation being used by the golf course. This change was made necessary by newly passed government regulations. The general manager and superintendent had to prepare a proposal for the annual .....more

Biovail was a large international pharmaceutical company with reported revenues of $788 million. Banc of America has issued a research report which indicates that Biovail Corporation's financial statements "raised a number of issues that warrant caution for investors," and as a result, Biovail's stock was given a "sell" rating by Banc of America. A member of Biovail's audit committee is preparing for an upcoming audit .....more

The administrator of the Westmount Retirement Residence is concerned about the current cost accounting system. The administrator is not clear on how much each service offered was truly costing, and therefore charged each resident the same price per month regardless of their needs. In the past, the majority of patients demanded similar services, and therefore this pricing and costing system was appropriate. However, with demographic changes to the .....more