Gap Finances

INTRODUCION

For this project we have decided to talk about GAP. Almost all of us have heard about it. It is a worldwide US textile company founded on 1969, on San Francisco, California by Doris and Don Fisher, the reason was simple, Don said: “I couldn’t find a pair of jeans that fit”. Gap Inc. is a leading global specialty retailer offering clothing, accessories and personal care products formen, women, children and babies. Their main goal was to offer a wide variety of sizes and styles for different people and not only for a specific style. It started just with GAP and now we have in the market also GAP kinds and BabyGAP; and other brands that now are part of GAP that we are going to see later.
Gap Inc. is a global company with more than 3,200 stores worldwide, includingcompany-operated stores in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Japan, China and Italy, and franchise stores in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.
Doris and Don Fisher opened the first Gap store in 1969. The reason was simple. Don couldn’t find a pair of jeans that fit. They never expected to transform retail. But they did.
Guided by humility,compassion and a strong desire to win, the Fishers grew their company thoughtfully. Customers responded.
Today, Gap Inc. is a leading international specialty retailer with five brands – Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta – about 3,100 stores and 134,000 employees.
We’re growing globally, and just last year, we opened our first stores in China, Australia and Italy. We'reexpanding online shopping to customers, too. Today, customers in about 90 countries can buy our products.  
While many things have changed since 1969, the principles on which we were founded have stayed the same: creativity, delivering results, doing what’s right and always thinking of our customers first.
In this project we will see if is convenient invest in this great company as GAP is. We’ll usesome financial statements, opinions and comments of specialists to realize if is a good financial movement invest some money and also realize if this can bring us some benefits like rise our earnings.

SELECTING A COMPANY

Summary of key facts:
1969 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1995 | 2010 | 2011 |
They opened their first store at California
Opened a the first store in Australia and Italy
Theyopened another store in Santiago de Chile
Opened the first store in France (Paris)

Opened their first store in Asia, at Japan
They start selling their own brand

Stopped selling Levi’s products

OTHER KEY FACTS:
Brands: Gap (including Gap, GapKids, babyGap, GapMaternity and GapBody), Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta.
Stores: over 3,200 stores worldwide
Employees: Morethan 150,000 around the world supporting Gap Inc. and its five brands.

Actually I do have a special interest about this company because so many reasons, but the most important one is because it is a worldwide company that has been on the market place for so many years and still one of the best places to shop clothes for everyone on the family not only for one gender or age. Also it is reallyinteresting the financial situation that has been holding in the last years which we are going to analyze deeper later in this project.
Besides GAP is one of the most popular stores around the world we could say that is not on the current news because it is a stable company that has not relevant problems or situations that could be on the current news.
The information that we gather about thiscompany is all available on the internet, on safe pages. Actually most of the information was taken from the Official web page.

COMPANY BACKGROUND

Management team
Glenn K. Murphy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Gap Inc.
Michelle Banks EVP, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, Chief Compliance Officer
Jack Calhoun President, Banana Republic
Tom Keiser EVP, Chief Information...