This case focuses on the financial distress of France Telecom in 2002. It takes the student through the events that led to this crisis by focusing on the succession of credit rating actions from 1995 through 2004.

During the Fall of 2000, while stock market conditions were rapidly deteriorating, Interbrew, the world's second largest brewer, succeeded an impressive 14.1 billion euros initial public offering on Euronext Brussels, raising 3.25 billion euros to refinance its recent 3.6 billion euros acquisition of UK's second largest brewing company, Bass Brewers.

This case provides a unique illustration of how a high-tech European new venture starts-up, grows, burns cash, stumbles, adapts, captures value, disappoints, survives on the verge of bankruptcy to eventually achieve in the fall of 1995 among the most successful IPOs on NASDAQ.

This case teaches the student how to apply economic and NPV analysis to the fundamentals of a B2C transactional e-commerce business. It uses as an application how a new entrant online broker such as Ameritrade attacks incumbent financial service providers in the U.S.