Group Case: All-Star Real Estate

All-Star Real Estate Inc. is a relatively new licensing and educational business on the outskirts of
downtown Vancouver. Currently, it is housed in a three-story building with twelve presentation/
training/assessment rooms (on average, each room has 27 seats). As Vancouver is a real estate hotbed
with lots of real estate activity, the ownership and management are trying to find ways of expanding
business operations. Hence, they have contracted you, a talented team of MBAs with accounting/finance
expertise, to supply a business report analyzing the current issues faced by the business with specific,
detailed recommendations.

All-Star attracts a mix of local and international customers. The institution offers competitive licensing
and course/workshop enrollment rates to similar, smaller-sized businesses in the region, but All-Star has
benefitted from the highest growth rate and, hence, now enjoys the largest employee and customer
groups. The business has quickly filled to nearly 100% of its physical capacity in three short years (some
availability must be maintained for emergency meetings and events). Hence, it needs to explore
expansion options so that it can continue to serve new customers and generate higher profits.

Based on sales data and surveying of customers, the top motivation for entering business with All-Star is
to obtain realtor or real estate appraisal licensing- this is often the main goal of local customers.
However, a close secondary goal for individuals outside the country has been to understand Vancouver
real estate better. With this knowledge, they can make better investments or help wealthy clients,
friends, and family members back home achieve their investment objectives in the Vancouver area.
Some customers have even reported that they have opted to move to Vancouver after enrolling in a
course with All-Star and seeing the beautiful city!

The sales data and survey results have the marketing director, Shelly, reconsidering the business’s
marketing strategy. She is wondering if the business’s marketing should promote an investment bridge,
or even living bridge, into Vancouver- even though there are other factors which could impact one’s
ability to move or invest here. Shelly understands that advertising should be tasteful and ethical but also
wants it to be effective so that she can impress the higher ups with her work.

Local residents and news outlets have raised concern over the availability and cost of real estate in
Vancouver. All-Star employees have heard a growing number of complaints from Vancouver residents
about their part in making the local housing situation worse. Although they have pointed out that All-
Star also offers workshops and courses on real estate development, and others on renting units out, All-
Star seems to continue to get its share of hate in the city. Shelly wants advice on how the business can
market itself for growth and still improve its brand locally.
A real estate oversight board, managed by the BC government, has recently warned All-Star that it will
be regulating the growth of such businesses/industries more closely in the upcoming year. In fact, it is
highly likely that All-Star would need to cap customer numbers at end-of-2024 levels. Hence,
management believes this to be the business’s final real opportunity to grow without restrictions from
the oversight board. The business’s President, Don, is urging you to analyze two options under
consideration carefully and give a detailed recommendation.
As a starting point for analysis of expansion plans, Don is suggesting that you look at the financials for
the year just ended. At the end of the year, the business had 2,420 currently-enrolled customers (the
year had started with 1,780 customers) and had delivered over 400 courses/workshops in the year!

Figure 1: Selected revenues and expenses for 2023:

Revenues $22,600,000
Salary expense- Admin/staff 4,300,000
Salary expense- Trainers 5,200,000
Salary expense- Executives 1,900,000
Rent expense 3,000,000
Marketing expense 1,400,000
Interest expense 800,000
Supplies expense 300,000
Other expenses 200,000

Don mentioned that he considered the building’s rental agreement to be quite favourable as the
landlord has been great at addressing the institution’s needs in a timely manner. Since the business
moved to the space a year ago, many of its operating expenses have been included in the rental
agreement including internet, electricity, natural gas/heating. The only significant recurring expenses All-
Star covers are security and janitorial services- the admin/staff salary expense includes three security
guards (one for each floor) and two janitors. Don mentions that as the business has roughly doubled in
size over the past year, the following expenses have also roughly doubled:
 Salary expense- Admin/staff
 Salary expense- Faculty
 Supplies expense
 Other expenses

Don states that the other expenses have remained about the same over time, except for the salary
expense for executives. As reward for the business’s impressive growth, the five executives, all of whom
own sizeable chunks of the business (between 10% and 25% apiece) have tripled their salaries over the
past couple of years. However, they have collectively agreed that they will not increase their salaries
again until the business’s revenues surpass $30 million.

Despite being happy with the rental agreement, the business’s owners wish to expand to a larger space
as the business is currently getting more customer interest than it can feasibly capitalize on. Here are the
two expansion options Don referred to earlier:
Option A: McBain Tower
In this scenario, the business would exercise the option of breaking its current lease for a penalty of
$300,000. It would then relocate to a five-story space within McBain Tower. Since most of the space is
already designed well for training, All-Star could make quick tweaks at an estimated cost of $150,000
and get things rolling very quickly. The lease would be a bit costlier- $300,000 a month, and the business
would now need to incur added expenses of $50,000 a month for utilities. Don wants your help with
projecting the other expenses.

On the bright side, the business would now have sixteen rooms to work with (average size of 25 seats
each). Shelly admittedly hasn’t done much number crunching but believes she can boost enrollment by
25% if the marketing budget is increased by $300,000 to advertise the new larger location. Without the
larger budget, she estimates that customer numbers would grow by 15% next year.

Option B: BC Place
With this option, All-Star would rent BC Place stadium on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons (for ten
weeks of the year), at a cost of $10,000 per afternoon (four hours). Since the large stadium has two ends,
All-Star would run two three-hour workshops simultaneously and leave enough time for set-up and
clean-up. Don envisions each of the two workshops having 150 customers each. The set-up, clean-up,
and other costs (beyond rent) would be $1,000 a week.

Since enrollment fees for each workshop total $150, Don believes that there would be more than enough
revenue to cover the new expenses. Shelly believes that only a small marketing budget increase would be
needed with the BC Place arrangement- $150,000 more would be sufficient to recruit an extra 5,000
workshop registrants.

Due to the visibility and prestige of BC Place (as well as his familiarity and love for the current location),
Don personally prefers Option B. However, he does admit that there is another piece needed to
maximize the benefit of BC Place. A certain number of customers would need to be shuttled between BC
Place and the permanent office if they are going to be able to attend courses or events at both locations
on the same day. Hence, the business will need to buy or rent a large bus- this is something that
management is considering anyway (for free morning and evening routes around the city to help
customers out), even without the expansion to BC Place.
If All-Star was to purchase the 50-seat bus and use it solely for shuttling between the office and BC Place,
it would have the following expected costs:
Figure 2: Bus costs
Cost of bus, current $300,000
Driver salary, weekly $600
Repairs and Maintenance, weekly $200
Cleaning costs, weekly $300
Fuel costs, weekly $400
Insurance costs, annual $2,500
Expected sale price, 4 years later $200,000

Alternatively, renting the bus would cost $800 per afternoon (all expenses included). To purchase the
bus, it is unclear if All-Star would pay cash or borrow the money from the bank at a 5% rate (the business
has already negotiated a sizeable line-of-credit to borrow at this rate for any of its business ventures).
Don wants a pros and cons analysis of buying or renting the bus, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of
using the company’s own cash to purchase an asset, or borrowing to do so. He also wants an idea of how
the purchase of a big asset such as a bus would be accounted for.

Finally, Don does not come from an accounting/finance background and wants some advice on
evaluating performance using budgetary analysis. He asks, “For example, if all the 2023 revenues
expenses which are shown in Figure 1- what if the budget for all those numbers was 3% higher? Can you
show me an example of how a budgetary analysis would look like? Can you please make sure you tell me
what is good or bad? Also, how would I go about evaluating our employees fairly on their performance?
Not just with budget but maybe in other ways, too?

Objective: Prepare a APA-formatted business report analyzing all the accounting, business, and ethical
issues raised in the case with detailed recommendations to All-Star’s management. Please note that your
work WILL be analyzed for similarity and AI use!