Running head: CASE ANALYSIS 1

CASE Analysis for the Great White capital and beach Co. Ltd

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CASE ANALYSIS 2

CASE Analysis for the Great White capital and beach Co. Ltd

Table of contents

I: The Case Story………………………………………………………………………………3-4

II. The Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………4-6

III. The Recommendations……………………………………………………………………...6-8

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I. The Case Story

Great White Capital is one of the private equity groups that are largely known and highly

recommended on the Wall Street for their attitude that reflects “tough on target”. Their main

objective is to search for small companies with good market positions but with poor

management. Among the characteristics that it is known for include the “great war” where a

competent group of auditors and other professionals in different operations vet the companies

that are in line for purchase by the Great White Capital. They make sure that they earn

significantly from these negotiations. The company has a 25 percent annual turnover of

employees who include the managers that averagely serve at the company for almost four years.

However, there are about 21 members of the management team that have served the company for

over ten years. Besides these elements there is the rough culture aspect that the company greatly

takes pride in.

Beach Co Ltd. is involved in the production of beach supplies. From this, the make high

profits that are a result of their great management team and the extreme loyalty from distribution

services of their customer base. They include 850 associates who work together to find solutions

to customer issues or ensure that a required product reaches the market. It has its headquarters in

Paris in France but have a wide range of manufacturing plants in countries that include Brazil,

Vietnam and China. However, they have distribution services all over the world. The rate of

turnover at the company is below 5 percent and Great Capital wants to buy it. The three main

players in the purchasing process are GW Sharkey, who is an exceptional, upcoming executive at

the company. He has a positive attitude towards the ability to acquire Beach Co. since he thinks

that there are some hidden profits that the company will be in a position to find. However, GW

has a shortcoming in the sense that he does not pay attention to those who report to him. It would
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lead to major problems at the time of the purchase since he may not be in a position to consider

all the necessary aspects.

The other person who is involved in the purchase is Bob Quinn, who is a subordinate to

GW. He has offered his services at the company for around three years. The main thing that

attracted him to the company was that it had the reputation of “kicking butts”. He is shown to be

more sensitive that his colleagues at times. Therefore, in this case, he is not for the purchase of

Beach Co. Ltd. He has noted that the price that is being offered by Great White for the company

is not right. Moreover, it lacks professionals to run its operations besides the fact that they

operate on different cultures that are likely to develop into bigger problems on Great wall

acquires the company.

The third person who is involved in the acquisition process is Marie Clouseau who has

been working at the Beach Co. Ltd as a managing director for about eighteen years. She has been

part of the team owing to her smartness, high level of sophistication and her great degree of

commitment. Moreover, her professionalism is great and is handled in a very polished manner.

One of the outstanding elements about her is the perfect rapport that she holds with other

employees. This has made her Godmother to many of their children. Due to her commitment, she

reveals the strong business sense that she has for business as well as other charity activities

which expose her generosity. In this case, she is not only the considered as the Beach Co.

matriarch but also Beach Co. itself.

II. Analysis

GW was forced to come up with numerous promises to convince the Board at Great

White Capital to make the acquisition. One of them involved the need by Great wall to create a
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global network for its distribution hence his willingness not to proceed at Beach Co. According

to him, the distribution at Beach and the management at Great White would make an easy

solution. The advantage that Beach Co. has in this matter is that it holds a very solid track record.

For instance, these elements are related to the location of its headquarters and the various

distribution centers that it has all over the world. Moreover, they are also contributed by the

resilient nature of the managing director who has worked for a long period at the company.

Besides this, it is also related to the number of years within which the strong management team

members have been working together. In addition, the ability by the large number of associates

to work well in a coordinated manner enables them to handle the businesses and customer

service in a great manner. This is an indication that the company runs more like a family that

largely appreciates its employees who in turn improve on their productivity and have a low

turnover rate.

On the other hand, Great White Company always holds the belief that they know better

than any other company. It is for this reason that they have very little interest in learning new

components from the companies that they merge with. There is the notion that Great White holds

with regards to the need for growth by Beach Co. and that they only need the capital they will

provide. It is likely that their strategic operations will be enhanced after the purchase since they

will have an access to the global distributors and the important connection that the company has

with Europe. In this case, the acquisition will be very vital for Great White. One of the decisions

that Great White has made is to close the back offices at Beach Co. This means that the closest

office will be in charge of handling most of their workloads. With this, it will become difficult

for the employees currently working at Beach Co. to relocate and to experience the transition that

comes with the new office. This is also in terms of being able to move to a different country
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meaning that most of them will be forced to resign. On the other hand, it will be a great

achievement for Great White which will benefit in terms of recruitment and selection of new

employees. In essence, it will be possible to inculcate the beliefs and attitudes of the company on

them. In addition to this, there is a plan by Great White to eliminate the twenty one members of

the management team after the acquisition has lasted for a year.

The person who experiences that greatest damage is Marie Clouseau, who has worked so

many years to make Beach Co. a company that is well respected and admired. All of this will be

destroyed by Great White that is now coming in. She now seeks many approvals to give

customer credits, had many reports that were filled without reasons, a lot of requests from Great

White capital and unprofessional emails that demanded for replies. She can no longer fly first

class owing to the policies placed by Great White. The only option is to retire as advised by her

husband. Despite the positive attempts, Mr. Shakey was only interested in the purchase for the

distribution routes access.

III. Recommendations

It is important for the two HR departments from the two companies meet and discuss the

merger details before the purchase can be implemented. Although G.W from Great White

indicated that he would not meddle with the affairs at Beach Co., it was a clear trick to convince

the Board of Directors at great White. It is likely that the two companies will be involved in a

serious conflict especially since Beach Co. is foreign. This means that most of the practices will

not align.

The capital of Great White is in the United States, which will be the parent country while

France becomes the host country. The two countries have varied laws in terms of employment
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since France operates under the European Union. After Great White purchases Beach Co. it

becomes a global organization with some of its distributors in other countries. The hands of the

human resources personnel at the Great White Company are already full. It is now a global

organization, which means that it should be ready to abide by the laws set up by the different

countries from where they will source their employees. One of the most notable aspects in the

case was that a lot of EEO reports in the form of paperwork were sent to Marie Clouseau. In this

case, it was not clear why a global company with its headquarters in the United States would

suddenly be concerned with France matters in the Equal Employment Opportunity in France.

There is a conflict since businesses in France are majorly run by the European Union and

provides most of the rules that include employment. It is for this reason that the rules and

regulations that emanate from the United States are not likely to have any grounds on the French

employees.

After receiving a ten page performance evaluation, Marie brought up the complaint to

Bob Quinn. She was aware that such along kind of performance evaluation does not align with

the criteria used for the management of effective performance. This is notwhat she was used to

when she worked at Beach Co. It is important to note that “The people who use a performance

measure must believe that it is not too time consuming.” (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright,

2007). In this case, one of the major changes that should be made by the human resource

department at Great White capital lies in the need to meet and discuss the transformations being

experienced with that of Beach Co. following the purchase completion. It is important to have

synergy between the two entities although the Great White side will table a lot of demands.

One of the major challenges that are being experienced in the whole deal is the bad

attitude and behavior of GW Sharkey. He already has a problem listening to his junior staff. He
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had also made the promise to the Beach Co. board of members that he would leave the company

alone. However, it did not happen as he had set plans long before the purchase was approved by

the board. He has taken away the bonus plan from the associates and even their free lunches thus

taking away the duties from the lunch ladies. This is an indication of the bumpy road ahead for

the Beach Co. employees. The associates would form the lower class members of the newly

formed company. Therefore, the top executives would be the beneficiaries of their efforts.

Moreover, the Beach Co. top leaders are new to the “a 12-inch stack of paper” with what is

expected of them in the same way that employees at Great White Capital had and were required

to complete them every Sunday afternoon.

Concerning the alignment of the strategies within the business, it is important for the

employees at Beach Co. and those at Great White to spend time together some of the times.

Through this, they will learn the culture of the company in terms of its operations and

expectations. There are plans for Great White to move the back office of Beach Co. to the one

closest to the location of Great White. It would be a good chance for them. The problem is that it

would take too long to consider. Therefore, it is the mandate of the Great White employees to

engage the employees at Beach Co. in the process before they move and become ex-pats in

France. It is through this that entire purchase process would achieve the desired level of

effectiveness.

It is also possible to enhance the effectiveness level by beginning with Mr. Sharkey. This

is through the ability to reduce the paperwork given to every employee. It also means that there

will be an end to the vulgar and threatening emails. For instance, in one of the emails, it was

stated that “Get me my G__Damn report”. It would also be one of the means through which
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synergy would be obtained between both of the companies to balance between the initial high

and low turnover rates.

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References

Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2007). Fundamentals of human

resource management.
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