finance

Frisch’s Big Boy, a local Cincinnati Restaurant chain, was purchased by National Restaurant Developers (NRD) and taken private in 2015. As part of this transaction, NRD used Frisch’s own buildings and land as collateral to finance the transaction and store remodeling. After Covid, Frisch’s struggled to cope and was eventually served eviction notices in 2024. We review the transaction and strategy, and the lessons that can be learned. Author’s note: My dad recently passed away in August. He used to…

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is a Fortune 35 firm specializing in food processing and distribution. They recently announced an accounting revision, together with their Chief Financial Officer’s resignation. The accounting revision specifically modified the profit distribution across ADM’s segments and showed that profits at ADM’s were previously overstated. Executive compensation at ADM was tied directly to the Nutrition segment’s performance. Essentially, each executive stood to gain $7.4 million in variable compensation from the misstatement. Archer Daniels Midland’s compensation plan unwittingly…

I’ve been shopping at Kroger literally since I was a small child. My mom preferentially shopped at Kroger. I can still hum the “Let’s Go Krogering” jingle and remember Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall on their commercials. I know many people at Kroger who I like and respect. But anymore, shopping at Kroger makes me feel like a criminal. I shop at Kroger every Monday to pick up my food staples. Since 2021, the loss prevention ‘features’ at my Kroger…

Non profits using QuickBooks Online (QBO) face setting up a chart of accounts as one of their first tasks. While QBO provides a chart of accounts (CoA) target out of the box for non-profits, it needs to be customized for most non-profits. In this article, I walk through the steps on how a nonprofit should think about their chart of accounts, how to design the chart of accounts, and how to make the changes in QuickBooks Online.

Our previous article on the banking crisis looked at Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) 2022 10-K to determine the reason for their failure. Our analysis revealed that the bank’s customers had fewer deposits, and its debt portfolio incurred mounting losses due to inadequate risk management. Both of these situations were largely attributed to Silicon Valley Bank’s inability to respond to rising interest rates. So the next question in the banking crisis of 2023, is this crisis just limited to Silicon Valley…

Silicon Valley Bank has entered into FDIC receivership and has for all intents and purposes failed. Here, I argue that SVB failed due to a failure to respond to rising interest rates that impacted both their customer deposits and their investment valuation; and this risk wasn’t well understood in the wider market due to the accounting treatment of their investments.