When a company moves from record stock highs to the threat of bankruptcy within two years, how should it account for the value of its assets?
When a company moves from record stock highs to the threat of bankruptcy within two years, how should it account for the value of its assets?
In the late 1990s, Corning Inc. - one-time supplier to Thomas Edison, creator of Pyrex and Corning Ware, and inventor of fiber-optic cable - enjoyed several years of rapid-fire growth, thanks to demand from the newly deregulated telecommunications industry. During this period, the 160-year-old company sold several of its traditional businesses and spent $10 billion on high-tech acquisitions. In 2000, the year that Corning's stock soared to $113 a share, sales of fiber-optic cable accounted for 40 percent of its revenue. But when the dot-com sector crashed, sales of Corning's star product plummeted. In this case, students analyze financial data from both Corning and one of its competitors to determine how Corning should account for the diminished value of its acquisitions and assets.