Investment guru Warren Buffet is one of the largest investors in The Coca Cola Company. He originally became interested in the soft drink company because he believed other investors were undervaluing the company. Mr. Buffet uses EVA as one of the primary tools to value companies. He believes that the true value of a company is determined by the ability of a company to earn cash returns in excess of the company's cost of capital.
When Mr. Buffet analyzed Coke's bottling companies he found a business that required very significant amounts of capital, the cost of which was barely being covered by the cash flows being generated by bottling operations - low EVA. The remaining elements of Coke's business involved brand management, product development, licensing, and several related areas. These operations required modest amounts of capital, but produced huge amounts of free cash flow - high EVA. This EVA analysis suggested that Coke would likely demand a higher valuation without the bottling operations. Mr. Buffet convinced Coke to form a separate company, Coca Cola Enterprises, to force investors to make two separate evaluations. The result was dramatic. The market valued these two separate companies much differently than when they were combined. The Coca Cola Company without the bottling organization was worth more than with the bottling organization.
The objective of your Final Project is to identify a company that might be worth much more if it were broken into pieces and valued (using EVA) separately. The rationale for this difference can perhaps be explained by the difficult investors have valuing companies with multiple business units and/or accepting the insights of EVA analysis.