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Abstract

North American Rail Services is a leading rail and track maintenance and construction service company in North America. The leading investor in the company wishes to have its investment returned which requires North American Rail Services to sell the company or start selling business units. The case presents students with questions about which business units to buy and for how much and also to provide compelling acquisition rationale. The case will take students 8–10 hours to complete and is suitable for advanced entrepreneurship and business undergraduates and first year master’s students. Students are provided with a tangible corporate context to evaluate business unit choice utilizing detailed case data. The case contributes to entrepreneurship case pedagogy through the use of corporate context for students to practice business due diligence, analytics, valuation and entrepreneurial decision making.

Keywords

case research corporate training,corporate entrepreneurship,business valuation,strategic business grouping,business unit integration

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Sigma Rail Services: From Executive to Entrepreneur

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