To make. Making the right choice will in the end will help the company to be more successful. D. Does the firm appear to have an effective corporate governance structure?

No, it does not appear that Sports Products, Inc. has an effective governance structure. If the stakeholders are the owners of the corporation and have the power to elect a board of directors to run the company, then the company should be running in the shareholders' best interests. During the 20 years that this company has never paid out a dividend to its shareholders. This raises a large red flag that points to the mismanagement that is going on.

The profits of the company are increasing while the stock prices continue to fall. This leads one to question whether the stakeholders are being given correct information about the affairs of the company and its finances.

E. On the basis of the information provided, what specific recommendations would you offer the firm?

The firm should take an approach of balancing the company's profits with the best interests of the stakeholders in order for everyone to realize success. Their primary goal should be to maximize the wealth of the owners, in this case that would be the shareholders. Value at any time is reflected...

"Management should only act on those alternatives or opportunities that are expected to create value for the owners by increasing stock prices" (Gitman, 2006). In order to accomplish this goal management should consider the returns and the risk of each business decisions that they make and their combined effect on value. In this case Sports Products, Inc. does not seem to have a problem being profitable, but they have a problem running an ethical business, which affects the stock prices negatively. This in turn does not work towards the ultimate goal of the company which it to maximize the wealth of the owners.
I think that the shareholders needs to look very closely at those people that sit on the board of directors, along with the people that are in the key management positions. It may be that all or some of those people are not a good fit for the positions that they hold. Once the shareholders get the right people into the right positions they need to make sure that board of directors and management as well know what the goals and initiatives of the company are and make sure that these are followed through on. These people need to be held accountable for the decisions that they make and the outcomes that they achieve.

References

Gitman, Lawrence J. (2006). Principles of Managerial Finance. Reading: Addison Wesley.

References