Starbucks Executive Summary

Starbucks Executive Summary

This summary will provide the history of how Starbucks came about, how it was founded, by whom, who is the audit company, and what stock exchange Starbucks is listed on. The summary will also provide information about Starbucks financial information over the past three annual reporting periods. These annual reports will show steady growth in the assets, along with steady growth in the liabilities of the company.

Starbucks Corporation was started in Seattle, Washington back in 1971. The three founding partners consist of, Jerry Baldwin who was formally an English teacher, Zev Siegl who was a history teacher, and Gordon Bowker who is a writer. The main inspiration for the company’s startup was from Alfred Peet. Peet inspired them to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment. The name “Starbucks” was taken from the book Moby-Dick, “Starbuck” was the chief mate in the novel.

The very first Starbucks was located at 2000 Western Ave. It was there from 1971-1976 until it was relocated to Pike Place and still currently stands there today. When the company first started the coffee beans were purchased from Peet’s but eventually, the owners started buying them directly from the growers.

1984 was the year that started to put the Starbucks on the map. The original owners found themselves with the opportunity to purchase “Peet’s” and in 1988 all of the original owners sold the Starbucks chain to Schultz’s II Giornale outlets. Eventually, the Giornale outlets were rebranded as Starbucks and then quickly began to expand. In 1987 the Starbucks name was changed a little bit and they added a corporation to it, making it “Starbucks Corporation”. The cause of this was from the backing of local investors within the brand and chain.

Starbucks prides themselve’s on having a strong coffee bean. In order to achieve that goal they go to the end of the world to find the beans themselves. Howard Shultz had to travel all the way to Italy in order to find out about the popularity of espresso and espresso bars.

NASDAQ is the stock exchange that Starbucks trades. NASDAQ's ticker symbol is SBUX. Stock prices in the last 52 weeks range between $31.17 and $49.36. Prices have steadily dipped in the last two years.

Deloitte & Touche LLP is the audit firm for Starbucks. Deloitte & Touche LLP is reponsible for putting together the financial statements for Starbucks including the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Statement of Cash Flows. Starbucks does not follow the calendar year but has a fiscal year ending the beginning of October. This being said, October 2, 2010 , October 3, 2011, and September 27, 2009 are the three most recent annual reporting periods

In 2011 Starbucks reported $1,148.1 million in cash and cash equivalents. In the prior reporting period of 2010, they reported slightly higher at