1. How has the financial structure of Korres changed over recent years? How would
you assess its financial health?
Korres Natural Products was founded by Georgios Korres in 1996, and it focused
on producing cosmetics products. Between 2003 to 2008, it has expanded in 30
countries, and it went public in 2007. For now, it has over 300 employees and more
than 400 natural and certified organic products. This means it has already expanded in
the global market and it became a multi-national company. According to the case,
international sales had continued to increase as a proportion of total sales, even in the
years of financial crisis. And by 2015, it made up more than 35% of total sales. Korres
also entered in to a distribution agreement with J&J.
Generally speak, I think Korres’ financial health is good because the international
sales is growing, which mean it lower the risk of the effect by the crisis in Greek.
2. How has the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, and most importantly in Greece,
affected Korres’ business and financial results?
The Greek government had been running large budget deficits for years,
especially for shipping and tourism, which are the two largest industrial sectors, they
had been hard hit by the financial crisis. And the sovereign debt to GDP ratio
continued to rise in these years. In the purposes of preventing Greece to default on its
debt and threaten the euro, the EU policy makers came out some measures, including
restricting government spending, reducing debt or bailout, to solve the problem. And
