Chapter 12

A new venture Ralph Lauren has embarked upon is helping Ralph’s daughter Dylan to start her candy company, Dylan’s Candy Bar. The “15,000 square foot candy store is the largest candy store in the world”. It started with her idea of wanted to start her own business and her love of candy and Ralph helped her create the opportunity she needed to start the business. He helped her with financing and the business plan and now she has a very successful company.

In 1997 Ralph Lauren offered an IPO of $767 million at $26 per share. Their total expenses for this were $5 million with a lockup period of 180 days.

Resources:

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-19/news/31365535_1_dylan-lauren-dylan-s-candy-bar-ralph-lauren

Nasdaq.com.  Retrieved from http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/ralph-lauren-corp-11816-8646

Chapter 11

According to the COO of Polo Ralph Lauren Retail Group, Bridget Berman says Ralph Lauren’s company culture is “very open and friendly” and that he started with “small loyal team that is still with him”. Ralph Lauren tries to uphold a very positive company culture and keep employees happy so they will stay long term. They like to promote from within and have many cases of employees starting at the bottom and working their way up to upper management. They not only offer pregnancy leave, but 3 months of parental leave as well for either parent whether having a child or adopting. They offer longer than average vacation time as well as many travel opportunities, and promotions to different locations within the company. It has been reported that although the salary is low with long hours and a highly stressful job, employees are given many rewards. Ralph Lauren offers its employees different rewards such as bonuses for attendance, employee discounts, and stock options.

 Ralph Lauren communicates with key stakeholders about strategy in a few different ways. They have a separate website full of information for stakeholders (investor.ralphlauren.com). They give all off their financial information here as well as news on the company. They give a full update on the company every quarter and also a conference call every quarter open to anyone who wants to call in.

References:

Alumna profile. Retrieved from http://www.vtmagazine.vt.edu/fall02/feature1.html

Investor.ralphlauren.com

Vault.com

Chapter 10

Ralph Lauren Corp. has been involved with several different mergers and acquisitions including one in 2010 when they acquired Shanghai Jin Jiang Dickson Center Co Ltd in China (alacrastore.com). Ralph Lauren also acquired Doosan Corp for $40 million in exchange for control of inventory and employees of the company in South Korea (tickerpot.com).

Ralph Lauren acquired the Club Monaco brand in 1999 which it sells in stores such as J.C. Penney. Club Monaco has a lower price scale which helps Ralph Lauren to appeal to a broader customer base.  Ralph Lauren has acquired many companies over the years to extend their products such as Poloco, Fashions of Europe, Polo Brussels, Impact 21 Co., and Seibu Department Stores.

References:

Alacrastore. Reftrieved from http://www.alacrastore.com/mergers-acquisitions/Ralph_Lauren_Corp-1013395

Doosan Coorporation. Retrieved from http://tickerpot.com/symbol/rl/1037038/topic/doosan-corporation/2012

Chapter 9

Ralph Lauren has several alliances including allowing stores such as Macy’s, Belk, Saks, Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf, T.J.Maxx, and Marshalls’ to sell their products. They also have one with S Schwab Company.  Ralph Lauren’s licensing agreement with the company offers them the “entire children’s wear license for boys’ and girls’ apparel… in the United States and some other countries as well” (findarticles.com). Another alliance is in Asia with the company Dickson Concepts. Ralph Lauren has paid the company $20 million to control its Polo brand  clothing in “the Southeast Asia region, which is comprised of China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand” (seekingalpha.com).In Japan, Ralph Lauren has formed an alliance with Naigai co, Ltd. Regarding its Polo brand children wear and golf apparel as well as a 5 year agreement for “Polo and Chaps brand hosiery”(seekingalpha.com).

References:

Polo Ralph Lauren Coorporation. Retrieved from http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/rl/description

Rabon, L. S Schwab Company the plan, brand and the brains behind it. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3638/is_1_41/ai_59512040/