Cersei and her brother Jamie inherited a family ranch consisting of 2,000 acres in New Mexico from the recent passing of their father. The ranch was operated mostly by Jamie and Jamie and their late father resided on the New Mexico Ranch. Cersei also owns a ranch in far west Texas, consisting of approximately
Business and the law Presentation Scenarios
“Open for Business”
Cersei and her brother Jamie inherited a family ranch consisting of 2,000 acres in New Mexico from the recent passing of their father. The ranch was operated mostly by Jamie and Jamie and their late father resided on the New Mexico Ranch. Cersei also owns a ranch in far west Texas, consisting of approximately 2,000 acres, but she resides in Midland. She has big profits from her grazing and hunting operations on the Texas property. The New Mexico property is also likely to be profitable in a few years’ time but is and has been operating at a loss for the last several years. Cersei and Jamie want to form some sort of entity to own and operate the ranches. What should they form? Cersei also has a ranch manager, Jon Snow, for her ranch on site since she doesn’t live there. Should they include him as an owner? Employ him? Keep him on as an independent contractor?
- Choose an entity form, and if dictated by the type of entity chosen, “form” the entity by choosing a name, a state of formation, drafting a certificate of formation or incorporation, and the governing document of the entity, such as bylaws, a partnership agreement or a company agreement. If you have chosen an entity with limited liability protection for the owners, you may also likely need a written memorandum of organizational meeting, or to hold such a meeting and prepare notes from the meeting.
- If you have elected to make the ranch hand an owner, explain why and show the electronic negotiations with him regarding his duties and all the parties regarding their ownership interest. If you have elected not to make the ranch hand an owner, negotiate a contract covering his duties and compensation, either as a contracted employee or an independent contractor.
The final assignment to be turned in will be a PowerPoint Presentation for review by me and your classmates.
The best presentations (and those to receive the highest grades) should at a minimum consist of the following:
- one or more slides dedicated to the type of entity chosen and why, your entity’s name, your entity’s business purpose, a hierarchy of ownership, management and control appropriate to the selected type of organization, and include some of the formation documents
- one or more slides dedicated to the negotiations between the parties, excerpts from the negotiated written agreement consummating the transaction
- one video presentation embedded (i.e., not a link) into the presentation. This required video should be produced by you, not a clip you pulled from the internet. You may be creative in this video and use others in the video. You may include other video and/or audio clips from any source, but check file size limitations.
- You should aim for your PowerPoint presentation to take 5-10 minutes to view, although the length of your presentation will not directly impact your grade.
Presentation – Step by Step Instructions
Step by Step Instructions
The theme of your project is Open for Business. Here is an example of the finished project from a prior year: “Open for Business.ppt”.
Step 1: Each student will select a business scenario. There are four separate business scenarios set forth below. Please choose one scenario and you will complete the project based on that scenario. You must inform me/your coach of the scenario selected via email no later than the end of Module 3. If you fail to properly or timely choose a scenario, I will assign you one. Choose early because I reserve the right to pull a scenario off the table if a lot of students choose the same scenario so that we have a variety to watch at the end. (If you wish to complete this project in a group setting with no more than 3 students, you must notify me/your coach no later than the end of Week 3).
Step 2: In this project, the student will decide (i) what type of business organization to form (and why), (ii) form and name the new entity, assign management duties as appropriate, (iii) discuss and, considering the various roles, negotiate a proposed transaction, and (iv) prepare a simple legal document as indicated in each scenario.
Step 3: The final assignment to be turned in must be uploaded to the general class discussion board in the assigned folder and must be in “View” or “Presentation” Mode before uploading, meaning the file opens to a slide show automatically. It can run automatically on timers or be a click through. Be sure to include: Copies of you formation documents, if applicable; Excerpts of the negotiations; an embedded video; and, a copy of the final negotiated agreement, which should contain all the elements of a contract.
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Note – Video: Your presentation must contain an embedded video produced by you. The video must be embedded and not just a link. You do not video yourself presenting your PowerPoint that you made; rather, produce a video that aids some portion of your project. You can use other actors. The goal is to make sure you can prepare a professional looking presentation in PowerPoint. The video can be anything – presenting the business model, a scene of getting financing, the negotiations between parties, a summary, or an advertisement for the business. It is less WHAT the video is about, so long as there is a video (that is appropriate, is somehow related to this project, and is an original creation) and it is EMBEDDED – in other words, I don’t want to be redirected to YouTube. Embed the video so it runs on a click or automatically within the presentation. Be creative, but professional (I have 60+ of these to grade).
Also, a note on original creation – one year a group spliced together an ad from multiple tv ads to create their video, and that’s fine too, but you have to have complied it. Don’t go steal someone’s video and just upload it.