EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
FBL 5030 FUNDAMENTALS OF VALUE CREATION IN BUSINESS
SEMESTER 1, 2017
ASSIGNMENT - ACCOUNTING
STRATEGIC CHANGES AND FIRM PERFORMANCE
ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS
1. The following is a list of 8 organisations/companies, one of which will be the subject of your analysis.
CODE COMPANY
AMP AMP Limited
TWE Treasury Wines Estates Limited
ORG Origin Energy Limited
WOW Woolworths Limited
MQG Macquarie Bank Limited
COH Cochlear Limited
DMP Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Limited
AMC Amcor Limited
2. One of these eight companies will be randomly assigned to you for analysis. For this information, refer to the Excel spread sheet on Blackboard (Bb). If working in pairs, choose only one of the companies.
3. Find the Excel files on Bb which contain the past 6 years of the financial statements data.
Download your selected company data file for the analysis.
4. Research about your company. Find all important and relevant information in company’s annual reports, company’s websites, or newspaper articles, etc.
ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS
1. Analyse the behaviour of any three significant items in the income statement for the period of six years. Discuss whether your organization’s performance relating to these items appears to be improving, deteriorating, or remaining stable over this period. Explain why you selected those items and what you recognize as the most relevant strategic reasons for the trend/s that you have recognized. Justify your answer.
2. Analyse the behaviour of any three significant items in the balance sheet for the period of six years. Discuss whether your organization’s performance relating to these items appears to be improving, deteriorating, or remaining stable over this period. Explain why you selected those items and what you recognize as the most relevant strategic reasons for the trend/s that you have recognized. Justify your answer.
3. Analyse cash flow statements of the last six years and explain any three major changes which have occurred in relation to investing, financing and/or operating activities of the business. Justify your answer.
4. Calculate two relevant ratios under the four chosen ratio categories (profitability, leverage, solvency, operational efficiency or market ratios) for the period of six years. Give conclusions for your ratio analyses based on the figures you have derived.
5. Identify any two items not included in (or derived from) the financial statements that you think would be important to someone considering whether the organization is performing well. Discuss your reasons for believing that these two items about the company would be important in making an investment decision.
(HINT: you might want to consider items discussed in other sections in this unit.)
NOTE
• Your assignment should be in the form of a business report (please refer to the document provided). Your report should include:
? an executive summary (not more than 200 words)
? an introduction (not more than 150 words)
? answers to the given questions written in the body paragraphs, with appropriate headings, subheadings, etc. [Do not use questions as headings]
? a conclusion (not more than 150 words)
? an appendix with excel data provided for financial statements and relevant calculations such as:
a) Horizontal and/or vertical analysis (which outcome should support choice of discussed items in questions 1, 2 and 3)
b) Ratio analysis (including formulas and calculations)
Use Microsoft Excel to perform the financial statement analysis.
• Your analysis should be limited to a maximum of seven (7) pages and a minimum of five (5) pages. This is equivalent to no more than 1,800 words (not including the cover page and references)
• Write as if you are a management advisor preparing advice for a client (who is the manager of the context company).
• Give your report an adequate title and plan appropriate headings for easy reading – Consider your audience when constructing your report.
• The assignment must be prepared using a word processor on A4 paper. Make sure you choose a legible font face and size (e.g. Times New Roman 12 or Arial 11 would be sufficient) and double-spaced.
• All graphs (highly recommended for this analysis) should be drawn with the aid of a suitable software tool or package and appropriately referenced. • Handwritten assignments will not be accepted.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
• Due by Monday 5 pm Monday 1 May via Blackboard (Step 1) and Turnitin (Step 2).
• Should include the ECU assignment cover page (provided on our Bb website).
Note: if an assignment cover sheet is not included your assignment will not be graded.
? The assignment must be submitted as one document for individual or pair submissions.
• If you complete the assignment in a pair you should:
? before starting your teamwork, submit a completed and signed FBL5030 assignment contract in person (on campus students) or via email (off campus students), and
? after submission of the assignment, submit an assignment peer review form in person (on campus students) or via email (off campus students).