Trinity Industries Case

Overview
Trinity Industries was founded in 1933, is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and operates in the United States, as well as Canada and Mexico. Trinity Industries products and services are represented in industries such as transportation, construction, energy, and agriculture. The company is regarded as part of the services sector and the railcar industry. Trinity Industries is comprised of five business groups: rail, construction products, inland barge, railcar leasing and management, and energy services (see Exhibit A). At the close of 2016, Trinity Industries was comprised of 17,680 employees and are allocated across the various groups as per Exhibit B.
Trinity’s major competitors are Union Pacific Corp., Canadian National Railway

21). According to a value analysis conducted by CapitalCube, when compared to industry peers, Trinity’s “annual revenues and earning change at a slower rate, implying a lack of strategic focus and/or a lack of execution success” (Trinity Industries, Inc. – Value Analysis (NYSE:TRN) : June 13, 2017, 2017). In addition, CapitalCube states “Over the last five years, Trinity’s return on assets has declined from above median to about median among its peers, indicating declining relative operating performance” (Trinity Industries, Inc. – Value Analysis (NYSE:TRN) : June 13, 2017, 2017). Analysts are predicting sales growth for fiscals years 2017 and 2018 at -19.0% and -5.1% respectively (TRN Analyst Opinion | Analyst Estimates | Trinity Industries, Inc. Stock - Yahoo Finance,

Two key provisions of SOX include Section 302, Corporate Responsibility for Financial Reports, and Section 404, Management Assessment of Internal Controls. During Trinity Industry’s first year of SOX compliance, communication and planning were instrumental in the success of year one. The Director of Finance and Accounting, Jake Farkas, reached out to several people for their input and assistance in the SOX compliance project. The steering committee was comprised of a broad spectrum of people and included the CAO, CFOs from each business unit, an employee from internal audit, KPMG and E&Y (Schultze, 2011, p. 95). By reaching out to external sources, Farkas was able to obtain a necessary baseline Gantt chart that was vital to the success of the SOX compliance as it provided visual communication that organized the phases and respective timelines. The initial phase, project-scoping, included itemized purposes, including establishing common language among team members, which would allow them to communicate clearly and effectively.
First Year of SOX Compliance: Internal Controls
Internal controls, with respect to financial statements, assures the integrity of the financial statements by confirming the correct recording of transactions and the prevention of manipulation of revenues and expenses. Paragraph 24 of AS 5 (2016) identifies entity level controls