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Whether you're walking a tightrope or scribbling in your checkbook, balance is a good thing. And, one of the best ways to evaluate a company is to glance at its balance sheet to see what it owns with what it owes.
The balance sheet is a paragon of simplicity and is made up of three components: assets (the stuff it owns), liabilities (the money it owes), and shareholders' equity (the company's value to its shareholders).
Assets take two forms: short-term (or current) assets and long-term assets. Under short-term, there¿s good ol' hard cash. Then, there¿s something called "cash equivalents," which are assets like short-term bonds that can be sold so quickly, they might as well be cash. There you factor in inventory, which (if you're a reasonably competent business owner) you can sell to customers in return for--you guessed it--cash. (The raw materials a company owns to make that inventory also falls under this category.)
Long-term assets are things that are harder to convert into cash. (Think real estate and equipment.) Long-term assets depreciate, meaning they lose some value over time. Also under the long-term category are what's called intangible assets: things like patents and brands, that are important, but hard to quantify. Accountants earn their stripes figuring out the real overall value of these assets.
Once you know your assets, it's time for liabilities. As with assets, liabilities are separated into short-term or current, and long-term. Current liabilities are what a company owes in that year: Things like payments to employees or accounts payable to suppliers. Long-term liabilities are debts paid over several years.
Shareholders' equity is determined by subtracting the liabilities from the assets. That number represents the value of the company after all its bills are paid.
Obviously, investors should pay close attention to balance sheets. Spikes in the amount of debt carried, or a reduction in shareholders' equity, are usually red flags.
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Friday, June 27, 2008
The SimCity Box Hits Store Shelves Today in North America
Comtex
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Jun 27, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----The Sims(TM), an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) Label, today announced that The SimCity(TM) Box for the PC is on store shelves in the US and Canada. For the value price of MSRP $39.99, The SimCity Box offers five city-building games in one package that individually would cost more than MSRP $100.00. The titles from the award-winning franchise included in The SimCity Box are SimCity Societies, SimCity Societies Destinations expansion pack, SimCity 4, SimCity 4 Rush Hour expansion pack and The Sims Carnival(TM) SnapCity. Also included, as a special bonus, is a trial version of the Spore(TM) Creature Creator.
"For nearly 20 years, SimCity has made building, managing and sometimes destroying cities a fun, cultural phenomenon," said Rod Humble, Head of Studio for The Sims. "By offering The SimCity Box at such an extraordinary value, we give current fans and an entirely new generation of players countless hours of city-building exploration, strategic challenge and fun. This is certainly the greatest value SimCity has ever brought to players."
What's in The SimCity Box:
-- SimCity Societies: Players construct not only the cities they desire, but mold their cultures, societal tendencies and environments as well. With more than 500 buildings and decorative objects to place, the possibilities are almost limitless as players can build artistic cities, authoritarian dictatorships, spiritual communities and many more. An accessible, innovative and versatile city-builder, the game lets players create the city of their dreams, or their nightmares. Included in The SimCity Box is the original SimCity Societies game along with all the subsequent game updates, which have added new strategic modes, three new exotic disasters (UFO invasion, giant robot attack and a massive fire-breathing monster), new crises, new user interface functions, new buildings and much more. Even more free content and features are being planned for future updates.
-- SimCity Societies Destinations expansion pack: Enhance the SimCity Societies experience by providing all the tools players need to create an entire city based on attractions and amenities that visitors love. The expansion pack allows players to control more than 100 new buildings to create their customized destinations including sprawling theme parks, tropical beach resorts, and country hiking trails. Featuring an enhanced map generator, players can now identify each city's opportunity for diversion and the city can capitalize on that draw.
-- SimCity 4: Right from the start in SimCity 4, players will experience new God-like powers of creation as they lay the groundwork for their cities by molding mountains, carving valleys, seeding forests and laying rivers. With these new landscape creation features, players can now construct the most realistic metropolis imaginable.
-- SimCity 4 Rush Hour expansion pack: Take control of the city's transportation with a wide variety of new options such as the elevated train networks of Chicago, the wide-avenues of New York, or the one-way streets of San Francisco. Players can develop a seamless mass-transit system including monorail, subway, or even a scenic ferry service that connects to a greater regional travel network. With all-new problem-solving maps and tracking tools, players can see the pulsing flow of traffic, map out the most efficient routes, and quickly get their Sims from one city to another.
-- The Sims Carnival SnapCity: A unique city-building simulation game with a puzzling twist that is both strategic and accessible. In this fun, open-ended gameplay experience challenges players to position falling, colored blocks in just the right places to build the best possible cities. Featuring an array of industrial, commercial and residential neighborhoods, it's never the same city twice! The fun never stops as the player must save this city from natural disasters, man-made catastrophes, and even out-of-this-world alien attacks! Players can also pick-up-and-play by jumping into 25 unique existing neighborhood levels.
About the SimCity(TM) Franchise
The original SimCity was distributed in 1989 and was critically acclaimed garnering dozens of awards and selling millions of copies both domestically and internationally. SimCity 2000(TM) followed in 1993. SimCity 3000(TM) released in 1999. SimCity 3000 and SimCity 3000 Unlimited both released in 2000. EA shipped SimCity 4 Rush Hour and SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition in 2003. SimCity Societies shipped in November 2007.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA(TM), EA SPORTS Freestyle(TM) and POGO(TM). In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.
EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle, POGO, The Sims, SimCity, The Sims Carnival, SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
SOURCE: Electronic Arts Inc.
The Sims Label, EA Addison Ames, 650-628-2990 Director, Public Relations AAmes@EA.com or Bender / Helper Impact Audra McIver, 212-689-6360 Audra_McIver@bhimpact.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
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