Nike Financial Analysis
Nike is a company that has thoroughly embedded itself into the psyche of people around the world. It's a company that started with humble origins from selling footwear in the basement to becoming the behemoth in the athletic industry. Bill Bowerman, University of Oregon track & field coach, and Phil Knight, middle-distance runner under Bowerman co-founded Nike. Nike was first established as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964 as a partnership and the name Nike was officially adopted on May 30, 1978. The infamous Nike Logo - Swoosh, was created for a fee of $35 by Carolyn Davidson, a graphics design student. In 1980, Nike becomes a publicly traded company with the completion of its Initial Public Offering of 2,377,000 shares …show more content…
This region has approximately 1076 Nike employees and additional 44,568 workers working in 137 total contract factories. Nike has branch offices and subsidiaries in five countries.
Some of the challenges that Nike has faced and still faces are in regards to its manufacturing facilities and violation of labor laws. Nike has been accused on numerous occasions of employing children in its factories or exploiting workers in developing countries. In response to these allegations, Nike implemented strict standards for manufacturing facilities, including minimum age, air quality, mandatory education programs, expansion of micro-loan programs, factory monitoring, and enhanced transparency of Nike's corporate responsibility practices. In order to better its image, Nike even ceased orders from Pakistan in November 20, 2006 as the soccer-ball manufacturer there failed to correct labor-compliance violations.
Examination of Nike's debt ratios reveals that the company has less debt in proportion to its assets. In 2002, Nike had a debt ratio of .404 with total assets being worth about $6.44 billion, and total debt of $2.60 billion. In 2003, Nike's debt ratio increased to .415, its total assets increased by $378.1 million, and its total debt increased by $226.4 million. Debt ratio fell to .394 in 2004, and fell further in 2005 to .358. In the year 2006, Nike's debt ratio increased to .363, and had total assets of $9.87 billion and total