Profit and Shareholder Wealth Comparison Paper

Some companies become giants in the business world when classified as conglomerates. According to Investopedia.com (2007), a conglomerate is “a corporation that is made up of a number of different, seemingly unrelated businesses”. Two major companies such as General Electric (GE) and Tyco are classified as conglomerates. Analyzing the market-to-book ratios of the two companies will provide a measure of shareholder wealth. The ratios will also help understand which company has provided greater shareholder wealth creation. The calculation of net profit will help identify which company has done a better job of maximizing profits. From those analyses, the strategy of each company regarding the risk to the shareholder’s investments will be clarified.

Today, GE is “11 technology, services and financial businesses with more than 300,000 employees in 160 countries around the world” (General Electric [GE], 2007, para. 2). A few elements need to be analyzed in order to understand the profit and shareholder wealth of GE.

Cover scan of the final issue of Tyco World, May 2...

English: Tyco Fire & Security headquarters in ...

General Electric Automatic Iron Box

Some of those elements are market-to-book ratio and net profit margin. These numbers are calculated by using different formulas. These data are found on the 10 K form that GE has filed with the SEC.

Market-to-book ratio= market capitalization/ shareholder’s equityMarket capitalization= total common stock shares* latest stock priceNet profit margin= (Net income/ Revenues)*100At close, on May 17, 2007, GE’s stock price was $ 36.53. (Yahoo Finance.com, 2007)The table below is a table that uses all the data and helps compute the numbers in order to get the final numbers needed. The equity and common stock shares outstanding were obtained from the 10 K form. On order to get the common shareholder’s equity, the preferred stock equity has to be taken away from the equity; however, GE did not have any preferred stock equity.

Tyco is a model of sophisticated and innovative manufacturing and...