Create the Value — A Family-Firm CFO at Grupo Alimentos Bárcena

A four-round, advanced corporate-finance and family-business simulation set inside Grupo Alimentos Bárcena, S.A. de C.V., a Guadalajara packaged-food manufacturer (MX$4,200M revenue, MX$588M EBITDA, 1,150 staff) owned across two generations through a family holding. On Tuesday 9 June 2026 three value-creating opportunities arrive at once — a U.S. retailer's 1,400-store listing chief among them — and the cash to fund them does not: deployable cash is only MX$120M. Playing the CFO, you have until the Family Council vote on Friday 27 June to create value (EVA/NPV at a 13.5% peso WACC) without breaking the 2.5x net-leverage covenant or the 46-year unbroken MX$180M dividend that a four-cousin, dividend-dependent branch will fight to protect — on threat of forcing a MX$900M buyout. Round 1 diagnoses value and liquidity: you establish that the firm creates value yet can only deploy MX$120M against MX$90–240M options, and you read the leverage headroom under the 2.5x cap. Round 2 chooses ONE investment — the MX$240M Querétaro line (highest NPV but above the MX$200M Council-approval threshold and unfundable from cash alone), the MX$180M Texas co-packer (faster U.S. access, integration risk), or the MX$90M Guadalajara automation (lowest risk but too small to serve the listing, exposing a MX$60M chargeback/de-listing penalty if the listing is won then under-served). Round 3 structures the financing mix — bank term loan, non-family private placement, a dividend cut, or a sale-and-leaseback of the Guadalajara plant — modelling pro-forma leverage, WACC, ownership, the dividend, and the governance approvals required. Round 4 wins the Council vote before the independent board member (who asks about value) and the dividend-dependent branch (who asks about income). The math rewards charging every option for its cost of capital (EVA discipline), protecting covenant headroom, pricing the family's control preference and the dividend compact, and serving a won listing — and punishes the five classic errors: highest NPV with no funding or approval path, spending the entire covenant cushion, cutting the dividend unilaterally, growing EBITDA while destroying value, and under-serving the U.S. listing. Final KPIs track EVA (MX$M), NPV (MX$M), the Liquidity Ratio, and Family Governance Fit.