Business Review at Berkeley Semester Portfolio Fall 2018 by Business Review at Berkeley

Fall 2018

BRB est. 2018

Semester Portfolio BUSINESS REVIEW AT BERKELEY

www.businessreviewatberkeley.com | businessreviewatberkeley@gmail.com

President's Letter The Triple Disproportionate

To our readers and teammates,

Effect of Student Loans on Minorities and Women, pg. 10

I couldn’t have imagined a better first-semester for Business Review at Berkeley (BRB). We grew our family from six members to twenty-eight strong; built the Community and Graphic Design teams from scratch; and started a weekly newsletter, which gets sent to 150+ online subscribers. Some of my favorite BRB memories from this semester include drinking boba on the grass outside MLK and carving pumpkins in the courtyard of Unit 2. Every Saturday, we met for town hall in Barrows 174 to present working article topics, crowdsource better ways to approach these ideas, and debate important decisions about the direction of the club. Our members wrote twenty original articles, designed twenty beautiful graphics, and wrote the syllabus for a potential Fall 2019 BRB decal. Town halls were a time for all of us to learn about and partake in each others’ work, which fostered an intimate and unified group of friends bounded by a common interest in investigative journalism. Before you read through the valuable insights that our columnists contributed this semester, I want to emphasize again the importance of good, honest-to-the-facts journalism that at times can be asphyxiated by the sheer volume of shallow reporting that pervades our newsfeeds. BRB desires to challenge these pernicious trends by approaching complicated problems from first principles and investigating difficult questions by thinking critically. Our duty as investigative journalists and Berkeley students is to pour fresh eyes over stale problems. The value of this work cannot be underemphasized. Even as our columnists and artists fully committed themselves to their heavy courseloads, they never shied from BRB’s mission: to be the thought leader in business news and financial literacy on campus. I couldn't be happier with our team.

The China-U.S.

Standoff, pg. 16

Aaron Chow, President

Editor-in-Chief's Note To a great first semester.

From articles on the power of nonprofits and the importance of childhood education, to the impact of minimum wage hikes and unbilled revenues, our columnists dove deep into their research to offer the Cal community important insights into the world of business and financial literacy.

To do so, they questioned their own biases and

SHIP and Health Insurance, pg. 21

prejudices, learning and growing in the process. In turn, the content they created truly challenges the Berkeley community through their synthesis of world news, academic research, and life-skills. We couldn’t be more proud of the progress our columnists have made. Darren Chow, Editor-in-Chief

Studying Abroad, Studying Cheap, pg. 22

Our Columnists*

Investing

Venture Capital's Big Stack Bully, pg. 15

Aaron Chow, Senior Investing Columnist, Sophomore Peet’s and Noah’s are the Same Company Patching Up Margins with Real Estate The Triple Disproportionate Effect of Student Loans on

8 9 10

Minorities and Women

Giovanni Vecchio, Senior Recording Revenues Before Billing Customers IPOs Structural Mispricing Discovery

11 12

Frankie Xu, Sophomore The Berkeley Portfolio Fall 2018

Jonli Keshavarz, Freshman The Berkeley Portfolio Fall 2018

Joseph Ng, Freshman Pinpoint the Profit Venture Capital’s Big Stack Bully

13 14 15

Economics

Nachiket Shah, Senior Economics Columnist Shashank Dalmia, Sophomore Oh! The Places The Economy Will Go

*You can click each contributor's name to go to their LinkedIn page and contact them about an article they wrote. The columnists are arranged alphabetically by column and school year.

Varun Jadia, Freshman The China-U.S. Standoff—Unwelcome

Development or Hidden Opportunity? Wealth, Poverty, and Kindergarten: The Impact of

Early Childhood Education

Jesse Rosales, Freshman How Starving Artists Gentrify the Very Places They

Now Can’t Afford

Sanya Sethi, Freshman Charles Van, Freshman Content is the New Telecommunications Industry

Financial Literacy

Darren Chow, Senior Financial Literacy Columnist SHIP & Health Insurance The Triple Disproportionate Effect of Student Loans on

21 10

Minorities & Women

Studying Abroad, Studying Cheap

Daniel Kim, Freshman Must-Have Apps to Help You Save, Invest, and Spend

Shane Puthuparambil, Freshman 24

Study Your Student Loan Options!

Community

Amy Liu, Senior Community Columnist Mastering the Art of

KICK-starter, pg. 30

Jessica Wu, Sophomore Best Boba in Berkeley

Leveling the Playing Field of College Admissions

Samantha Dickson, Freshman The Best Falafel in Town The Power of Nonprofits

27 28

Samantha Kim, Freshman Business Owners Speak Up: Minimum Wage and Rise in

Housing Prices in Berkeley

William Ko, Freshman Business Owners Speak Up: Minimum Wage and Rise in

Housing Prices in Berkeley The Berkeley Portfolio Fall 2018

Mastering the Art of KICK-starter

Graphic Design

Dennis Mach, Freshman

10, 11, 20, 26

Jennifer Tran, Freshman

16, 24, 27, 30

Jessie Yang, Freshman

15, 17, 22, 29

Kaho Otake, Freshman

12, 19, 23, 28

Rose Lee, Freshman

13, 17, 25

Administrative

Panos Patatoukas, Berkeley-Haas Faculty Advisor Amy Liu, Director of Operations Brendan Fong, Freshman Shreyas Hariharan, Freshman Special thanks to Professor Patatoukas for simply associating with BRB. Even bigger thanks for mentioning BRB at the end of your Golden Bear Orientation and Parents Weekend presentations and for lending us the rights to use your face on our marketing materials. Super thanks to Amy for sending out emails and putting on all our socials. Many thanks to Brendan and Shreyas for publishing, designing, and distributing our content online and to our subscribers. You guys are the unsung heroes of BRB!

BRB est. 2018

The Impact of Early Childhood Education, pg. 18

Pinpoint the Profit, pg. 13

Peet's and Noah's are the Same Company

Graphic Design by Aaron Chow

BRB Bottomline: Did you know that Noah's Bagels is owned by the same company that pours your Peet’s Coffee? The same company sells those Krispy Kremes you see students munching on along Sproul. Has Berkeley sold out to capitalism, and does capitalism control our lives?

Ever heard of Reckitt Benckiser? They make the Air Wicks that you plug into the bathroom socket; the Lysol wipes that Mom brings up every time she visits; every Dr. Scholl’s foot insole upon which the fine men and women of Croads and Cafe 3 serve you chicken pot pie; and Durex.

For every dollar you spend on Reckitt Benckiser products, ten-percent of the profits go to the Reiman family, a set of well-endowed heirs that also just sold you your Peet’s coffee, Noah’s bagels, Krispy Kreme donuts, and Clamato tomato-clam juice. Read More

Patching Up Margins with Real Estate

Graphic Design by Aaron Chow

BRB Bottomline: Operating margins tell an investor a lot of about the underlying economics of a business, and managers of public companies know that. In an investment landscape where big data analytics dominate the screening process by streamlining investment allocation into companies with certain fundamental characteristics, the minutia of how those metrics are calculated have fallen to the wayside. This leaves a gap for financial statement investigators and arbitrageurs to produce interesting insights into how companies manipulate and manufacture margins to tell management’s story.

Macy’s (NYSE: M) filed its quarterly report for the three-months-ended June 30th, 2018 last Friday and included Gains from Sale of Real Estate as part of Operating Profit—instead of Other Income—which both inflates Operating Margins and represented one-quarter and one-third of second quarter 2018 and full-year 2017 Net Profit, respectively. Read More

08 9

The Triple Disproportionate Effect of Student Loans on Minorities & Women

Graphic Design by Dennis Mach

BRB Bottomline: Despite ostensible claims that student loan debt helps lower-income students, women and minorities included, advance themselves through education, our current system subjects those very students to cycles of financial insecurity and socioeconomic discrimination. In this article, we identify three pernicious but implicit effects of student loans: lower academic performance, fewer early-career opportunities, and longer time until financial independence. The importance of getting a college education is rising just as student loan debt in the U.S. has skyrocketed from $600 billion in 2006 to past $1.5 trillion today. While the average cost of a four-year degree has doubled to nearly $105,000 over the last two decades, real median wages have only risen a modest $5,000, according to an independent report by Forbes. These trends are perhaps backed by good intentions. Like well-intentioned policies that encouraged homeownership as a basic human right in the decade before the Great Financial Crisis, access to higher education has become increasingly democratized: women make up 56% of students enrolled in universities... Read More 10

Recording Revenues Before Billing Customers

Graphic Design by Dennis Mach

BRB Bottomline: Are accounting regulations strict enough to avoid managers’ misconduct? And how can executives better meet stakeholders’ expectations? Here, we admonish our readers about how companies can manipulate revenues and current ratios by recognizing revenues before customers are even billed. Many, if not most companies, record accounts receivables, accounts payables, inventories and so on honestly following the original mandate of accounting standards to accurately measure and report financial information to external users. Yet, not all companies are operating with good intention. There is a difference between managing and manipulating financial statements. The difference lies in intent, which we often don’t know.

Accounting terminologies and standards are different throughout the world. In the U.S., we use Generally-Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP, pronounced /GAP/); but, in most countries elsewhere, companies that prepare publicly-available financial statements use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Despite different standards, the fundamental ways in which companies have misled and continue to mislead investors remain the same. Read More 11

IPOs Structural Mispricing Discovery

Graphic Design by Kaho Otake

BRB Bottomline: In most cases we think of IPOs as moments when stocks are introduced in the market and report enormous returns. Do you believe a +94% on the first day of trading is just reflective of a firm’s fundamental value? Here, we provide our readers with some practical tools that may help investors to recognize overpricing. An initial public offering (IPO) occurs when a private company lists a variable percentage of its shares on public markets for the first time. Companies will often turn to the stock market to raise equity financing because it represents a risk-averse way of getting capital as opposed to issuing debt and taking on financial leverage.

However, most IPOs present two characteristics that need to be further analyzed to raise awareness among investors. First, IPOs tend to experience positive first-day returns. This can be easily proved: considering the last 100 IPOs (going from November 19th backwards), the average first day return was 17.85%. However, IPOs, compared to seasoned securities, tend to have lower performances in the years following the offering, especially around the expiration of IPO lockup agreements. Read More 12

The Berkeley Portfolio Fall 2018

Graphic Design by Rose Lee

BRB Bottomline: Can Berkeley students beat the market? We’ve compiled the first Berkeley Portfolio with stocks selected by random students across campus from different backgrounds, majors, and academic years. This semester, Berkeley students saw investment opportunities in automotive chips, athleisure, and French airlines. We’ll be back in a semester to tally the results and bring you the next re-balancing. Thank you to all our participants!

Where do some of the top students in the nation see investment opportunities today? Each semester, Business Review at Berkeley conducts a random survey of investment ideas from Berkeley students collected from a diverse intersection of backgrounds, majors, and academic years. This year’s participants represent an eclectic ensemble of chemists, data scientists, and an MBA candidate. Read More

Pinpoint the Profit

Graphic Design by Aaron Chow

BRB Bottomline: Where does the fat in nonfat milk go? What parts of your social media accounts are being sold off to big companies? How much in interest and fees does your credit card balance cost? Finally, is it disingenuous for companies to market the prettier side of their business—but derive a large portion of their profits elsewhere? Processors are companies that charge a fee for processing raw inputs to be sold to consumers or utilized by other companies. These businesses exist across all industries, and they act as the lubricant for the production process of many of the products and services that we take for granted.

The nature of processing, however, is that the final product or service is necessarily without some byproduct. For instance, in the process of producing skim milk, dairy processors take whole milk and remove the fat. In this article, we analyze three case studies, showing that it isn’t uncommon for processors across different industries to generate about 10-25% of their revenue from selling these byproducts. Read More

Venture Capital's Big Stack Bully

Graphic Design by Jessie Yang

BRB Bottomline: Investors are encouraged to think long term. But, how long is too long? Masayoshi Son’s Vision Fund is part of a 300year vision for SoftBank—and the world. It’s an investment fund with $100 billion which will make investments primarily focused on technology, especially artificial intelligence. Ten years? Twenty years?

What about three hundred?

That’s the vision of Masayoshi Son, the self-made 60-year-old billionaire founder and CEO of SoftBank, a massive Japanese mobile telecom and investment firm. Masa is betting $100 billion on a portfolio of 300-year-long moonshots with his (aptly named) Vision Fund. In this article, we’ll take a look at the Vision Fund—what it is and what it means for startups, venture capital, and everyday investors like you and me. Read More

Oh! The Places the Economy Will Go

Graphic Design by Jennifer Tran

BRB Bottomline: The current boom just became the longest on record. But where do we go from here? The Fed is trying something only once done successfully in history.

This bull market is the longest on record by most definitions. Unemployment has fallen to levels not seen in five decades. With the most recent tax cuts, corporate earnings are looking rosier and rosier. The U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 4% in the second quarter, which, while in part due to recent tax cuts, are levels that haven’t been experienced since the tech boom.

But, all this strength brings with it other concerns—inflation and an overheated economy. In the effort to avoid and combat these risks, the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates and slowing down GDP growth to a positive but sustainable rate without plunging the economy into a recession. This ideal scenario is what economists call a "soft landing." Read More

The China–U.S. Trade Standoff: Unwelcome Development, or Hidden Opportunity?

Graphic Design by Jennifer Tran Graphic Design by Jessie Yang

BRB Bottomline: The world’s two largest economic superpowers are set to square-off in a bout that is sure to shake up world-markets. What does this mean for everyone else on the playing field?

With President Trump’s 10% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports going live on the 24th of September, and China ready to retaliate with their own set of counter-tariffs, the next few months are sure to be tumultuous, not just for the two parties involved, but the world economy. Most would say the writing on the wall is largely negative – stock indexes are falling in some countries; currency rates are depreciating in others as stakeholders in the market are bracing for strong economic headwinds. However, are there potential benefits hidden in the trade-war? What does it mean to be a country with a large manufacturing sector as superpowers shift towards more protectionist policies? Read More

Wealth, Poverty and Kindergarten: The Impact of Early Childhood Education

Graphic Design by Jennifer Tran Graphic Design by Rose Lee

BRB Bottomline: If you had to rank different periods of childhood education according to importance, which level would you guess is the most formative? High school was certainly the hardest. Maybe, middle school if you got shoved into lockers. Odds are, Kindergarten didn’t even make the list. Turns out, the quality of your Kindergarten and Preschool teachers has far-reaching impacts, not just on where you end up going to college and your eventual salary but also your long-run quality of life, making it possibly the most formative phase in a child’s education. The Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) was a four-year-long study conducted in Tennessee in the 1980s by the State Education Department to ascertain the impacts of childhood education (from kindergarten to thirdgrade) on children. In 1996, a tenth-grade follow-up study was conducted to observe the same participants’ high-school performance. If you’re interested in looking at the data, it’s available here. Read More

How Starving Artists Gentrify the Very Places They Now Can’t Afford

Graphic Design by Jennifer Tran Graphic Design by Kaho Otake

BRB Bottomline: A need for space, hipster tastes, and new money paints the housing crisis in metropolises worldwide. Read on the Hoxton Effect and why realtors are looking at the latest art fads.

No more than a few steps from the London Underground’s Old Street Station, the walls line with graffiti. Seemingly ancient Victorian buildings clash with modernized skyscrapers. The alleys in the borough of Shoreditch wind through a history of opportunity and cultural change that follows the evolution of London’s property economy.

Artists are gravitating toward East London, a historically impoverished region of England, with the intent to exploit the low cost leases of retired factories. The academic work Let’s Build, by James Heartfield, writer for the Review of Radical Political Economy, depicts how low rents paved the way for the creative industry in boroughs at the fringes of East London. In the early 1970s, artists

£15 per square foot while most people in West London found rents that ranged from £30 to £50 per square foot. could lease space at around

Content is the New Telecommunications Industry

Graphic Design by Jennifer Tran Graphic Design by Dennis Mach

BRB Bottomline: You might’ve noticed that when you go into an AT&T or T-Mobile store to purchase a phone plan, you no longer get just the standard bundle of calls, texts, and data. Instead, you get a “free Netflix subscription” or “Hulu subscription for a reduced price” on top of your standard unlimited calls and data. Why are telecom companies doing this? And, what does it mean for the future of content creation? The telecommunications industry started out as an oligopoly, a market with high barriers to entry and a low number of providers. And, because of the high level of demand for cable, phone, and internet services, telecom companies, such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., enjoyed years of easy profits without much competition.

Fast-forwards to today, and those companies have matured, growth has slowed, and little differentiation between the services they offer mean price cutting. Read More

SHIP & Health Insurance

Graphic Design by Aaron Chow

BRB Bottomline: Time to make sense of all that health insurance jargon that makes you feel sick in the stomach. Stick with us as we deconstruct health insurance and break down what Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) does for you. Does this sound familiar: It’s week five of the semester, the midnight oil is burning, and midterm season has descended upon campus like a swarm of locusts—prophesied and expected, yet nonetheless devastating. You watch in mounting dread as that sinister cough jumps from student to student, roommate to roommate, till it’s the eave of your midterm and you’re stuck in the shared bathroom throwing up yesterday’s overpriced Bay Area lunch, wishing you had some medicine.

Look no further, we’ll help jumpstart your health insurance education, so you can get the medicine you need, and get back to studying for your midterms.

Studying Abroad, Studying Cheap

Graphic Design by Jessie Yang

BRB Bottomline: Studying abroad, having those once-in-a-lifetime, special experiences, doesn’t just have to be a bucket list activity. With enough research, planning, and budgeting, anyone can study abroad on a dime. Imagine: you’re sitting in the shade of the Eiffel Tower, a picnic array complete with French brie, fresh fruit, Pinot Noir—all the French necessities— laid out before you, watching as tourists and families dance around the scenic grounds. Maybe you’re providing aid to impoverished villages in rural Ghana as you develop crucial sustainable development initiatives. Or, what about immersing yourself in Peruvian culture, eating Cuya and sipping Pisco, as you stand, breathless, atop the sacred ruins of Machu Picchu.

College is about experiencing new things, and studying abroad is one of the best ways students can force themselves to embrace new experiences: traveling the globe, wandering ancient cities, eating mysterious foods, diving deep into culture and diversity. While this may sound like the stuff of fairytales and far-off dreams, Berkeley offers amazing Study Abroad programs that can make these dreams a reality... Read More 22

Must Have Apps to Help You Save, Invest, and Spend

Graphic Design by Kaho Otake

BRB Bottomline: With google chrome extensions such as Finance Toolbar and apps such as Evernote, Honey, etc., everyday people like you and I can make informed and effective decisions with our hardearned money. This article teaches students how to leverage the power of technology to create better habits around saving and spending while gain access to cheaper ways to invest and invest safely. With just a little financial literacy, technology leverages the ways consumers manage their savings and investments while allowing them to track how much they spend, so they don’t spend too much. This article is a curated list of the best investing, saving, and spending apps that you should be using to maximize your financial potential. In an age of fast technological advancement, you should use technology to give you the right habits and visibility to reach your financial goals faster and with ease.

Study Your Student Loan Options!

Graphic Design by Jennifer Tran

BRB Bottomline: How do you plan to pay for school? Are federal student loans able to assist you in your quest for higher education? Hang on tight as we deconstruct federal student loan options and see how they can help you afford college! It’s the middle of October, and millions of seniors in high school are drafting application essays for their chance to attend the college of their dreams. One of the biggest considerations for applicants is financial in nature. It’s no surprise that pursuing higher education can be monetarily taxing. Often times, college can cost students tens of thousands of dollars each year. In order to afford tuition and living expenses, students often turn to scholarships and nongift financial aid in the form federal loans.

According to Investopedia, a loan is money given to another party in exchange for future repayment of the borrowed amount. The federal government represents the largest lender of student loans in the U.S., which helps students pay for expenses like tuition, room and board. Read More

Best Boba in Berkeley

Graphic Design by Rose Lee

BRB Bottomline: Boba shops have preyed on Berkeley students’ thirst, but what drives the most profit may not be as obvious at first. Just recently, Yi Fang Taiwanese Fruit Tea and T-Zone opened up on Bancroft and Telegraph, making them the latest additions to the Berkeley boba family. Over several years, Berkeley has been heavily influenced by its large Asian population, causing boba shops to sprout everywhere. Berkeley students now have the luxury of choosing between 20+ different boba shops and can satisfy their boba cravings no matter where they are in Berkeley.

If there are so many around Berkeley, and over ten of them are within a block or two from UC Berkeley, how do these shops continue to make profit? How are they differentiating themselves from the rest to steal the crowd? To find out, I decided to interview the workers at local Southside boba shops and 50 random UC Berkeley students. Read More

Leveling the Playing Field of College Admissions

Graphic Design by Dennis Mach

BRB Bottomline: A good SAT score has the power to change the path of not only a student’s education but also their life. Because of the important role that standardized testing plays in college admissions, thousands of private SAT prep and admissions counseling companies are exploiting high school students’ (and their parents’) anxiety over college apps for profit. Learn more about how a local non-profit, CollegeSpring, is fighting back to make education accessible to all. Let’s be real. Applying to colleges was a total nightmare.

The dreadful summers of endless SAT prep—doing practice problems over and over again from test prep books that cost a small fortune or from small printed flash cards prepared by SAT prep programs, which cost several small fortunes. We all remember those nights of crying over college essays, because they weren’t perfect enough; the stress of making sure we got that “A” in class because we thought it was the most important thing we needed to get into good colleges. Read More 26

The Best Falafel in Town

Graphic Design by Jennifer Tran

BRB Bottomline: Local Berkeley restaurant, Sunrise Deli, intertwines culture, ethics, and a whole lot of hustle to prove that small business ownership is about far more than merely turning a profit. It’s seven o’clock on Monday morning and Sunrise Deli owner, Mohammad has just risen from a delightful slumber. He hastily dresses and rushes out the door; the best falafel in town isn’t going to make itself.

Sunrise Deli first opened its doors in the San Francisco Sunset District. Soon after its rich spices, ripe olives, and fresh meat tantalized the population of San Francisco, the deli decided to bring its prowess to Berkeley. Since nestling along Bancroft, The Deli has seen a considerable amount of owners, each with their own vision of what Sunrise should be. Eight short months ago, the current owner, Mohammad decided to take a risk and buy the Deli. Despite owning the business for an abridged period, he’s on a mission to emphasize culture, ethics, and hustle. Read More

The Power of Nonprofits

Graphic Design by Kaho Otake

BRB Bottomline:Â Why do Nonprofits exist and what role do they play in society? Although often criticized and under-valued, Nonprofits provide services and products that act as catalysts for the overall well-being and economic growth of society. On a local level, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive rely on their Nonprofit status to showcase the art and culture that defines our community. Nonprofits are tax-exempt businesses regulated by the Internal Revenue Service. To be classified as a Nonprofit, a business must provide a service or good that promotes the public good.

Under The Internal Revenue Code, Nonprofits are permitted to fully operate their business (hire employees, sell products and services, etc.) as long as no individual or shareholder directly profits from operations. What this definition fails to recognize is the business itself can reap the profits. As with most organizations, successful Nonprofits aim to generate enough capital so that, after operating costs, a decent amount of cash remains. With these earnings, organizations can either invest in and fund future projects or save them to ensure future sustainability (endowments).Â