Which THREE of the following are principles of good corporate governance according to the UK Corporate Governance Code?
M plc is an IT company that bids for large contracts to sell computer systems and also to service existing systems. M plc's senior management has always set budgets which are hard to achieve and have made no allowances for the recession.
The economy has improved and M plc's senior managers have made the budget even more optimistic. The budgeted sales target has been increased by 40%.
In the past, sales staff have not tried to achieve the budget sales because it was generally believed that the targets were impossible to reach.
M plc has recently appointed a new Sales Director who has decided that sales staff will be dismissed if they fail to meet sales targets for three successive months. He is also looking for higher sales margins than were achieved before.
What are the likely consequences of the new Sales Director's policy?
YUI owns 18 factories, which are spread around the country. Each factory employs 500-700 production staff and has its own administrative and accounts departments.
It has recently been discovered that the manager in charge of YUI's Hightown factory has been overstating his personal expenses claims for the past five years. The total amount stolen in this manner has been estimated at $10,000.
Why would it have been relatively difficult to have prevented this fraud?
R plc is considering an investment of $1,100,000 in a new machine which is expected to have substantial cash inflows over the next five years.
The annual cash flows from this investment and their probability are shown below:
Annual cash flow ($) Probability
200,000 0.4
280,000 0.5
350,000 0.1
At the end of its five-year life, the asset is expected to sell for $100,000. The cost of capital is 5%.
What is the Expected Net Present Value?
Give your answer to the nearest whole $.