Research Paper on:
Rio Tinto SWOT Analysis

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Tinto is a large intentional company, in order to consider their position a SWOT analysis may be very useful looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by the  company. Strengths The firm has achieved a large increase in revenues, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, in 2008 this  was 75% higher than 2007. A great deal of this was due to the acquisition of Alcan, a deal which was completed in 2007.  The firm has a large amount of long term assets which are well managed in order to leverage long term value. There is also a high level of  vertical integration, this is a known source of value, where a company is able to control the entire process in house, in line with Porters value chain theory (Thompson, 2007).  The markets that the firm operates within are also markets where there is an increasing demand and across a wide number of industries. Weaknesses The company has acuminated  a high amount of debt, this was increased as a result of the debt that came with the acquisition of Alcan. There are current attempts to alleviate this with the  sale of two Alcan divisions; Alcan engineered products and packaging operations, but so far a purchaser has not been found and the firm may need to split these up first  to achieve a sale in the mean time there is a high level of debt which requires servicing (Jennemann, 2009). The firm also has a weakness in  terms of the recent financial performance with falling debt levels and a decrease in the level of equity in the firm. This is aggravated by the high debt levels.