Vene, Vidi, Divvy
Once you meet the requirements for Manufacturer, your promotion is automatic. Manufacturers must complete at least 4 cycles before promoting to Financier. There are two main considerations for Manufacturers: dividends, and repairs. Other than that, the game play is the same – manage your facs and make money for your company.
Of course, now you can buy back shares from the broker if he still has any available. You can have a maximum of 2000 Treasury shares (owned by your company), and 2000 personal shares. When you dividend, all shareholders (including you and your company) receive the payout. Your treasury shares dividend goes back into the company treasury – basically treasury shares lower the amount that gets paid out from your company.
At the end of each cycle, the (fictional) shareholders examine your original IPO, your profit for the cycle, and the dividend you have issued. I say fictional because the actual players who hold shares in your company have absolutely no say in this. If they are not satisfied, they will let you know. If your dissatisfaction reaches 50%, you may suffer a revolt starting on Day 2 of the cycle. You do not want to suffer a revolt, although your shareholders will be happy since they will get a substantial payout. You, however, will be left with little and will have to try to rebuild your company. And dividends and dissatisfaction take effect immediately upon promotion to Manu – you may want to issue a divvy the day before you promote so the shareholders aren’t immediately upset with you.
There is no set amount to dividend. You’ll have to play with the amounts and see what is effective for you. One thing to remember – if you don’t dividend before the end of a cycle, the shareholders will be very upset and you will have the first day in your new cycle to divvy enough to calm them down, at least to under 50%. One thing I have noticed, and maybe others can confirm, is that if you dividend only on alternating weeks, you can kill two birds with one stone. The way it works – you don’t dividend the last week before you promote to Manufacturer. For cycle #1, you issue enough dividends to calm them down because they are upset about a 0 dividend for cycle 0. This not only calms them down, but when they examine the books at the end of cycle #1, they see that you issued dividends, so they are not too upset (sometimes their dis will go even lower than what it was immediately after divvying in the first place, so don’t divvy them down to 0% - I find 25-30% is okay). Then, no dividend is issued during week 2. Again, the shareholders are upset, so you calm them down by issuing some dividends on day 1 of cycle 3. At the end of cycle 3, their short memories again are happy with the dividend during cycle 3, and you avoid issuing divvies during cycle 4, etc…
Now, this strategy has worked for some. I am sure it depends on a lot of factors, including how much you do dividend. It may be that you end up having to issue as much every other week as you would have had to issue weekly to get the same level of satisfaction. I’ll await comments from others who have been through this to let me know their thoughts, and I’ll update this guide with them. You also run the risk of forgetting to dividend on your one day of grace (they cannot riot on day of a cycle) – yes, I have done that too. I don’t recommend it. Also, your non-fictional shareholders may be less than thrilled if they are not getting regular payments. If they sell shares all at once, they can affect the share price and also cause dissatisfaction, so unless you can buy those available shares yourself, you run the risk of continued dissatisfaction.
Now, as far as repairs, you can risk decay until 75% without risking complete loss of your facility; however, the WTs needed to run an inefficient factory increases. And while you may not mind the increase in total wages, the PO may not like it since it depletes their workforce, and if there are other factories on the planet, you may find yourself without WTs or with other FOs or the PO clamoring for you to repair your facs. For 15 facs, it will cost you 7.5Mig per cycle to keep them at 100%. If you plan to not repair your facs, make sure you clear that with the PO beforehand.
One other thing to consider is splitting stock, but I can’t comment on that as I don’t do it. Splitting stock increases the shares available, but basically all that does is decrease the percentage you will be able to own, since you can’t go above 2000 personal and 2000 treasury. 4000 of 10000 is 40%; 4000 of 40000 is 10%. Pretty simple math really. About the only reason I have heard of people splitting shares is to help out another Fin once the Manufacturer has a full portfolio (his or her own shares will increase, so the percentage stays the same). The other reason I have heard is to increase the holdings of the Fins so that the Fin has a full portfolio (35000 shares), and will be forced to sell some off in order to buy any new offerings. Like I said, since unless you are completely full yourself, you are only hurting your percentages, I don’t know how this helps you at all. Anyone who has done this or understands this better, feel free to email me and I can include your thoughts.
This guide has been written by Desaxman. 
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