SUCCESS AND FAILURE BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE

 

BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE 33. SUCCESS AND FAILURE

 

A Cash mountains and surpluses Predaco is a successful company. Over the years, it has distributed some profits or earnings to shareholders, but it has also kept profits in the form of retained earnings and built up its cash reserves; it is sitting on a cash pile or cash mountain. These reserves may be used for investment or to make acquisitions: to buy other companies. (See Unit 34) B Debt and debt problem Here are some expressions that can be used to talk about a company’s debts, or a country’s foreign debts: C Turnarounds and bailouts Doomco is in financial trouble and it is being described as sick, ailing, and troubled. They’ve called in a company doctor, Susan James, an expert in turning round companies. There may a turnaround and Doomco may recover. But if there is no recovery, the company may collapse completely. Ms James is currently looking for another company to bail out Doomco by buying it. This would be a bailout. D Bankruptcy If a company is in serious financial difficulty, it has to take certain steps. In the US, it may ask a court to give it time to reorganize by filling for bankruptcy protection from creditors, the people it owes money to. In Britain, a company that is insolvent, i.e. unable to pay its debts, may go into administration, under the management of an outside specialist called an administrator. EXERCISES 33.1 Match the sentence beginnings (1-6) with the correct endings (a-f). the sentences all contain expressions from A opposite. 1. For a group sitting on a cash mountain of £2 billion, GEC’s sale of 2. The group had a cash pile of nearly £300 million at the end of March 3. The airline has built its cash reserves 33.2 Complete the sentences with expressions from B and C opposite. There may be more than one answer. 1. Our economy could _________ under its huge debt _________ - we owe $100 billion to foreign investors and bank alone. 2. The railway company made a profit of 140 billion yen, after paying out 300 billion yen in debt _________. 33.3 Rachel is an accountant. Correct the mistakes in italics, using expressions from D opposite. I work in the corporate recovery department of a London accountancy firm, with companies that are in financial difficulty. They may be in (1) administer, and we try to find ways of keeping them in operation. We may sell parts of the company and this, of course, means laying people off.

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