Limited Companies (Tesco and Sainsbury) Case Study

Limited Companies (Tesco and Sainsbury) - Case Study Example The stance of both the companies is illustrated with the help of financial ratios, to read between the lines of the companies’ financial statements and to completely understand the financial data presented by the companies in their annual reports. The structure of the report comprises the companies’ financial performance analysis for the year ended 2005 from management, investors and lenders’ outlook because all these three groups are interested in the companies’ position and performance with different perspectives. Therefore, the comparison presented in this report would be helpful for the company’s management, investors and lenders altogether to form a base for their future decisions.Tesco and Sainsbury have been in the retail business for a long time. These companies operate on the international level, but have most number of their stores in UK, which is the major market of these companies. Tesco is the largest and most profitable superstore chai n in Britain. It is the fourth largest supermarket in the world. Tesco operates 2,318 stores in 12 countries around the world and employs 326,000 people, 237,000 of them in Britain where it is the largest private employer (TESCO: A Corporate Profile, accessed 29.11.2005). The principal activity of the Group is the operation of food stores and associated activities in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Japan (Tesco Annual Report, accessed 28.11.2005). Sainsbury is the UK's third-largest grocery retailer (after Tesco and ASDA) operates the long-struggling Sainsbury's Supermarkets chain -- some 464 supermarkets in the UK (accounting for nearly 85% of sales). The supermarkets get about 40% of their sales from private-label products. In addition to supermarkets, the company operates 260 convenience stores under the Sainsbury's Local, Bells and Jacksons banners. Sainsbury also owns 55% of Sainsbury's Bank (in a joint venture with Scottish bank HBOS) and a property development company (J Sainsbury plc overview, accessed 28.11.2005). PART B: ANALYSIS & COMPARISON OF FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE Tesco and Sainsbury are two popular companies in the United Kingdom. But the latest annual reports issued by these two companies reveal diverse results in the companies' financial performance for the year ended 2005. A deeper analysis of the differences between these companies' financial results is presented below with the help of some ratios peculiar to the analysis in terms of company's management, lenders and investors: FROM MANAGEMENT'S OUTLOOK The following analysis and comparison is done to help the companies' management to assess their performance and capabilities in the light of the companies' recent financial results: Gross Profit Margin Tesco Plc 7.3% Sainsbury Plc 4.12% The Gross Profit ratio analyses the company's profit margin before accounting for various operating costs. The gross profit margin of Tesco is higher than Sainsbury, which indicates that Tesco's management has efficiently managed to obtain more profit out of its sales after accounting for cost of sales incurred during the process of making the goods and services available to customers than Sainsbury. Net Profit Margin Tesco Plc 5.7% Sainsbury Plc 0.65% The net profit ratio analyses a company's profitability after taking into account all the operating costs. The above ratio calculation shows that Tesco has had significantly higher net profit margin than Sainsbury whose profit margin after the operating cost

Christian Scriptures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Christian Scriptures - Essay Example Watt points out that the gospels cannot be literally true and also completely accurate. On the other hand the perspective of E P Sanders was markedly different from that of Watt. As such Sanders takes a less critical stance with regard to Jesus Christ and his attitude towards scripture. Instead of representing Jesus Christ as a fundamentalist Sanders presents Jesus as an accomplished religious leader promising to guide people towards their own salvation. From Sanders' perspective Jesus Christ is argued to have been a highly important religious prophet who had performed miracles as well as claiming to be the Jewish Messiah. Sanders also believed that it always important to place the entire gospel accounts and stories concerning Jesus Christ into the most appropriate context. Basically the gospel writers as well as Jesus himself wanted certain messages passed on to their intended audiences. The opinions of Meier are certainly closer to those of Sanders than those of Watt. This is due to Meier also taking a much less critical stance concerning the mission, teachings, and the beliefs of Jesus Christ, as supposedly predicted within the Old Testament, and recorded in the gospels. Personally it would be best to assume that the gospel writers just like Jesus Christ had messages to get across to people. The gospels were written due to the fact that the people who had personally known Jesus Christ were dying out and the New Testament was needed to spread the teachings of the Early Church. The gospel writers wanted to persuade as many people as possible that Jesus Christ had been the Son of God and therefore needed to provide enough evidence of his status as the Messiah does. What do you think each of these three would write for example about the story of the transfiguration of Jesus (Mark, 9 2- 8) Watt would more than likely write that the story of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ was not literally true, and than the gospels should not therefore be automatically taken at face value. He would probably also contend that the message, which the story of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ was intended to convey was more important than whether or not it was actually or indeed literally a true life event. Watt would argue that the purpose of the story of the transfiguration of Jesus was to demonstrate that Jesus Christ was not only the Messiah he was also he resurrected Son of God. It is a fundamental part of mainstream Christian doctrine yet Watt might easily contend that the transfiguration of Jesus Christ did not actually take place. Sanders would probably have written that the story of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ was based upon the events that the disciples had believed to happen. Only Jesus and his most trusted disciples had gone up the hillside, with only the disciples coming back down. Sanders would probably mention that Jesus had grouped these disciples together in order to prove that he had indeed risen from the dead. There were therefore only a small number of witnesses that could describe how Jesus had descended up to heaven. All these witnesses also played significant roles in the development and the territorial expansion of the Christian religion. The eye - witness accounts strongly