Rodrigo Bazaes

February 23th

Finance Interactive v0.2.1 is Released

Click Here to try it now (it's free; only your email is required)

Main Additions

• Computer-controlled companies can now pay (cash) dividends. This is done at the end of each quarter. The dividend yield is always computed in relation to the last dividend. Additionally, companies are a little bit more careful when deciding whether to buy companies. Also, they may sell when they are overleveraged and need to reduce their debt.
• Retained earnings are included in the balance sheet. This registers all the accumulated net income earned by the company, net of dividends.
  Companies can only pay dividends from retained earnings (Exception: extraordinary dividends can be obtained but reduce the cost basis of the company. If that also reaches 0, then the dividend is fully taxed even if the company is 100% owned).
• Mergers (or tax-free liquidations) are introduced: this allows parent companies to absorb completely a 100%-owned subsidiary. In particular, all assets and liabilities get combined, and all subsidiary stock gets transferred to the parent. Also, bonds under the subsidiary are now considered as issued by the parent, etc.
• Introducing economies of scale benefits. This is particularly related to the previous point. Indeed, merging two companies has the drawback that the number of projects per turn gets reduced from 2 to 1. On the other hand, companies now can unlock economies of scale benefits.
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  In short, the larger the market share of a company, the larger the benefits will be. However, this only starts to have a significant payoff once a company can have a significant market share (at least 10%) and scale exponentially. The full benefits are hidden from the player, so it can be difficult to assess the benefits (as in real life). I may add more information regarding this in later updates to make it more tangible to you.
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  For now, the benefits give an increase in revenue and an improvement in gross profit and operating income. The extent to which this benefits the company depends on the % of market share of the (consolidated) company, as well as the CEO stats of Revenue Focus (for revenue increase) and Efficiency Focus (for improvements in gross profit and operating income). Also, your subsidiaries get a bonus (although it becomes weaker the farther the company is located in the diagram of holdings)
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  In any case, it is quite difficult now to get a noticeable benefit since all companies are part of the same "industry." In future versions, we will separate companies between industries, each one having its own set of projects. The market share there will be relative to the industry to which the company belongs.
• Multiple bug fixes.

Note: Previous saves are not compatible with this version.

Coming Next

• Stock issuance and buybacks.
• Anti-trust regulations.
• Economy indicator that will affect the company's performance.
• Integrate the game with a launcher.
• Check the Roadmap for a full list of what's coming.