An important skill as an investment banker is to work with clients to project companies’ future financial performance. Whether dealing with investors, lenders, or shareholders, all want to know how management sees the next few months, quarters, and years playing out. In the process of developing projections, company management spends hours trying to prognosticate what […]
For years, it was the front line of the holiday retail battle. Black Friday was treated like the be-all, end-all by many retailers, and attracting foot traffic on that day was critical. Accordingly, beginning decades ago, it became typical for retailers to offer special Black Friday deals to draw consumers into their stores, often at […]
With more than 40% of all Americans and over 50% of U.S. adults now vaccinated against COVID-19, the infection rate has dropped considerably and things are slowly returning to normal. Mask mandates and social distancing guidelines that have been in place since last March are being dropped and there is a push to return to […]
Kevin Plank, the founder of Under Armour, was born in 1972. That means that he was 16 when Michael Jordan won his first NBA Most Valuable Player award. As Jordan became a basketball-deity, perhaps Plank noticed, as many fans did, Jordan’s Nike sneakers. Perhaps that is one reason why as Plank grew Under Armour he […]
With encouraging COVID-19 vaccine approvals tantalizingly close, a milestone or a turning-of-the-corner moment feels near. Such moments are often a good time to look back, and to also peer forward. As we do that in the context of the consumer economy, interestingly, a key theme in both the post-mortem of the last nine months and […]