September 2022 – Vanderbilt Business Review

Starbucks’s ambitious plan in China: reflecting and expanding a business class reading

26Sep

By Iris AnNo Comments

All Posts, Features

Starbucks’s ambitious plan in China: reflecting and expanding a business class reading

By Iris An Sitting in the 21st Avenue coffee shop with my pumpkin spice latte, I opened my next week’s reading assignment for BUSA 3710 and found myself staring at six articles about Starbucks—in a Starbucks (the irony of this weekend study mode was not lost to me). As its name indicates, BUSA 3710: Corporate Valuation is a course introducing the methods of intrinsic, relative, and contingent valuation. Like Aswath Damodaran, the “dean of valuation,” once said, “A craft is a skill that you learn by doing. The more you do, the better you get.” Valuation is a craft that requires experience with a vast array of companies and their constantly fluctuating values. One way to expand one’s knowledge on a variety of businesses is to read about them. This is when the class reading ...

Financial Greenwashing for Dummies (and other related concepts)

25Sep

By Edward DingNo Comments

All Posts, Sustainability

Financial Greenwashing for Dummies (and other related concepts)

By Edward Ding Sustainability, ESG, GBPs. What do any of these things actually mean? Before we can get into a discussion about financial greenwashing, we first need to understand the meaning of “green” and a few other ideas. Our first definition is of principles related to ESG: Environmental, Social, and Governance. “Environmental” refers to how a business affects the world’s natural resources, especially in terms of climate change; “Social” refers to a business’ relationship to the communities and people that it serves, employs, or coexists with; “Governance” refers to the way a business regulates itself, prevents wrongdoing, and ensures ethical corporate behavior. Businesses must act responsibly in all three of these areas if they aim to be sustainable organizations: to be...

Bilibili Stock Plunges: China’s 300 million user video site is struggling for commercialization

23Sep

By Iris AnNo Comments

All Posts, Industries

Bilibili Stock Plunges: China’s 300 million user video site is struggling for commercialization

By Iris An 01 What is Bilibili and What Happened to it Bilibili (BILI), nicknamed B Site, is a Chinese video sharing website famous for the quote “powered by love” 用爱发电 and the danmu (弹幕) system, a form of video comments where scrolling user/viewer messages are posted on top of the video in real time. Since the mid-2010s, Bilibili has expanded to a broader audience from its original niche market of animation, comics, and games (ACG). With monthly active users (MAU) surpassing 300 million, Bilibili has become one of the most popular Chinese streaming platforms with videos including documentaries, variety shows, and other original programming. A week ago, on the evening of September 8, B Site released its 2022 Q2 financial results which showed that revenue in the s...

India’s Warren Buffett: Rakesh Jhunjhunwala passes away at 62

18Sep

By Iris AnNo Comments

All Posts, Features

India’s Warren Buffett: Rakesh Jhunjhunwala passes away at 62

By Iris An At dawn on August 14, just as daylight swept over Mumbai, Jhunjhunwala, the veteran trader-cum-investor, known as the Big Bull of Dalal Street, passed away following a cardiac arrest. At the funeral ceremony, Gautam Adani, who had just overtaken Bill Gates and become the world's third richest man in August, expressed his shock and sadness, calling Jhunjhunwala India's “ace investor” and “the most legendary investor that India has had.” Unprecedentedly for any financial practitioner, India exercised the highest tribute by placing the memorial service for Jhunjhunwala at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE India). Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted a photo of himself with Jhunjhunwala with the caption: "Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was indomitable. Full of l...

Netflix raised prices and customers are upset

13Sep

By Lexi BlakesNo Comments

All Posts, Industries

Netflix raised prices and customers are upset

By Lexi Blakes Mid-January, Netflix announced it would be raising prices on subscriptions in the U.S and Canada. Netflix offers 3 different plans that can accommodate a variety of television viewers, and all plans have become more expensive in recent months. Currently, the standard subscription price rose to $15.50 per month from $14, the 4K plan rose to $20 per month from $18, and the basic plan (without HD) rose to $10 from $9. Needless to say, customers are upset. Netflix promised to roll out the new subscription prices gradually for customers who were subscribers prior to the announcement, but prices for new subscribers went into effect immediately. As a leading company in the streaming industry, Netflix’s decision in such a competitive market could have countless repe...

FirstBank and Vanderbilt: Partners into the Future

12Sep

By Lexi BlakesNo Comments

All Posts, Opinion

FirstBank and Vanderbilt: Partners into the Future

By Lexi Blakes If you have been tuning into campus events since the start of the semester, you probably heard of this historic partnership between Vanderbilt University and FirstBank. As of August 29th, 2022, the Vanderbilt Stadium has been renamed “FirstBank Stadium”. This partnership comes with naming rights and a campus collaboration agreement, serving as the first step of the “Vandy United Initiative”. This initiative promises a complete renovation of athletic facilities with renderings of the new tennis center, which will be renamed “Lummis Family Tennis Center”, already available as of September 8, 2022. There has always been money to be made in athletics and companies have been emerging from every industry to get a piece of the profit and publicity. It seems...