Friday, February 14, 2020

Project Finance in the FertiNitro Company Coursework

Project Finance in the FertiNitro Company - Coursework Example Polar is a passive sponsor of FertiNitro and is not directly involved in the business of construction and operation of the fertilization plant. Polar is mainly a food and beverage company with present joint ventures in companies like Koch and Pequiven which are the major stakeholders of FertiNitro. The total revenue generated by the Polar group is the US $1.9 billion. More than 2% of the company goes to Venezuela’s non-oil GDP (Duff & Phelps, 1998, p.5). Impact of the Sponsors’ contribution on the project in terms of viability as a stand-alone project financing The strategy adopted by Polar in the investment of export projects has generated profitable returns to Venezuela. The first project to invest in Polar is FertiNitro. The indirect involvement of Polar in the project of FertiNitro has resulted in being the important mitigant to it. PDVSA gas is the subsidiary company of Polar Group which contributes to the major portion of the gas requirement of the country made available by FertiNitro. The foreign exchange over the past decades has been favorable for PDVSA which gives FertiNitro another reason to make the Polar group a part of its sponsors. The indirect participation of PDVSA in FertiNitro the foreign transfers and the risk convertibility gets minimized. PDVSA also has the leading market in urea in South America along with Pequiven which is the petrochemical wing of PDVSA. PDVSA is also responsible for offsetting the risk of the volatile market by lowering the cost of the feedstock gas supply. PDVSA is the world second largest Oil and Gas Company contributes the most to the FertiNitro as the company both directly and indirectly invests in the company. Even the internal funds of Pequiven are sponsored by PDVSA. Thus the viability of FertiNitro based on the stand-alone project financing of the Polar Group will bring about remarkable results as the company in engages in both direct and indirect financial investment for the company. Both the cost overruns and the time overruns of the company will be under check in spite of the fact that as Polar the company contributes to the 10% of sponsorship to FertiNitro and is a passive sponsor. Following aspects of the project with relevant matters Off-taker, The Polar Group has signed an offtake agreement with both Pequiven and Koch Off takers which are both joint ventures. The Koch Off taker bears the obligation of 75% of the ammonia and 43% of an area of the company that is available for sale during the year. Similarly, the rest of the obligation of the Polar Group’s off-take agreement lies with Pequiven. Certain specification of the company related to the off-taker agreement has to be abided by the mentioned companies like appointing an independent inspector regarding the approval of the off-takers who will be in charge of determining the quality of the product to be delivered. Based on the independent inspector’s assessment the rejection of the non-conforming products is made or availed at a discounted rate. At the initial level of agreement, Koch will have the rights to sell the products and delivering the same in North America while Pequiven will follow a similar act in South America, Caribbean, and Central America.  Ã‚  

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Loyalty Program of the Apple Inc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Loyalty Program of the Apple Inc - Essay Example The company that is the subject of this research is Apple Inc., an American-based company operating in various countries, headquartered in the state if California. The company specializes in the designing, developing and sale of electronics including software, personal computers, and cell phones. In addition, the company offers other services and products including Smartphones, tablets, web browsers to name but a few. As of the year 2014, Apple offered permanent jobs to over 72,000 people, and its profit for same year stood at a whopping $182 billion. Some of the competitors Apple faces include Samsung, Nokia, and Microsoft among others, all of whom offer either part of the similar services or the same as Apple. When it comes to the company’s loyalty program, Apple Inc. has been noted to have a strict one where a majority of the customers hardly qualify for it. According to Meyer-Waarden, Apple’s customers are expected to spend a considerable amount of money for them to qualify for the company’s loyalty program. Sadly, many of them do not hit the target thus keep missing the goodies the company offers. Even though the company has recently announced an adjustment to its loyalty program requirements, it is still hard for many consumers to reach the target. For instance, Apple recently announced that any school intending to have its classrooms filled with the Mac computers would indeed enjoy a discount. Such institutions will enjoy a discount of 6% to 8% when the purchases are made from the company. From the above findings, it is clear that Apple’s loyalty program is wanting, and requires improvement since there are other competitors who could capitalize on this weakness. While Apple has continued to offer still competition to other players in the industry, its loyalty program requires measures to make sure customers are retained.