Kohler Case

Introduction Kohler Company was faced with a very tough decision of whether or not to settle outside of court or go to court to settle with the dissenting shareholders. We will take you through the history of the company and why they recapitalized. Also, we will touch on some of the risks of going to trial to have the courts set a price. We have also broken down the numbers and found many different prices found by using the dividend growth model and the multiples approach. We will also show how different outcomes will affect Kohler’s retained earnings and cash standing. In the end, we believe we have chosen the best possible price to make everyone in the case happy without much sacrifice from either side and without having to go to court. History & Privacy Issue By creating a hog trough John Michael Kohler established one of the most profound plumbing companies in the world. In addition to the continual development and production of plumbing supplies Kohler also hit many other markets since its formation in 1873. The company’s private dedication to excellence has allowed them expand and seek control of these other industries. Some of these include furniture, engines, generators, rental services, and most recently the elegant golfing resort destinations which gives travelers a sense of privacy. Privacy happens to be one of Kohler’s most important values of which their success can be partially credited to it. In a publicly held firm, the company’s ownership is held and controlled by outsiders who had in some way bought into the firm as an investment, but in Kohler’s case being private means something totally different.

2 Since the company’s development and upcoming ownership has generally stayed within the family and maintained a completely private state of control. This means both family members and employees are distributed the ownership of the firm though shares. Forbes claims that Kohler’s success can be credited towards going and staying private because this

Cited: http://www.masco.com/investors/pdfs/Masco10-K2004.pdf http://www.mikehenning.com/2005.cfm http://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/s7398/singer2.htm Harvard Business Case http:// papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=721002 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_19980419/ai_n10430992