You should select a company from the FTSE100 London stock market (Public limited company – Plc). You will need to obtain a copy of their most recent annual report/accounts, alongside any other internal management

 Learning Outcomes Assessed:

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) Applications in this Assessment

Assignment Scenario : Financial Analysis of an Existing Company

Your Role

Assume you are the finance manager in an organisation, you have been directed by the finance director to make a presentation to a group of potential investors looking to invest in your organisation.

You are required to prepare a financial analysis using appropriate performance matrix and present your findings about the financial performance of the company on efficiency, liquidity, and profitability. You are required to use the information provided in the company’s annual accounts, including Market ratios to measure the market performance of the shares and dividend payments etc, of the organisation, evaluating it for the benefit of the potential investors, who will be invited to attend a short presentation provided by you. You have also been asked to critically assess the relevance of annual reports to stakeholders and any other additional internal management information that may help in financial analyses when speaking to potential investors.

Assignment Tasks:

You should select a company from the FTSE100 London stock market (Public limited company – Plc). You will need to obtain a copy of their most recent annual report/accounts, alongside any other internal management information which will help you analyse the company’s financial performance.

You must let your tutor know your chosen organisation. Prepare a presentation, based on the financial information in the annual report and internal management data. The presentation is to be made to an invited group of potential investors. The presentation will be for 20 minutes and will be followed by questions from the examiners.

You can consider the following in your structure:

• Structure of the Business including size, products, and governance
• Understanding financial analysis and its usefulness in organisations
• Implementation of relevant ratio analysis – calculation or extraction from annual report financial statements.
• Market ratios – Measuring the market performance of the company – calculating and interpreting share price, EPS, PE/ration & dividends payout, or cover.
• Relevance of annual reports in general to stakeholders.
• Any additional internal management information relevant to potential investors.

You may wish to consider any two of the following as additional internal management information.

• Strategic Plans and innovations and their benefits to potential investor
• Change Management Issues if any & how they were managed
• Global/International Competition and how they were managed.
• Global Market and economic Challenges and how they were managed etc.

Marking Criteria:

Background and structure of the company – 20%

Financial analysis of the company – 50%

Research & Presentation-15%

Q&A (from both student and examiner) – 15%

Important and helpful information

Please refer to the Module Guide for information regarding indicative reading, guidelines for the preparation and submission of assignments, and the assessment criteria.  

Submission

Electronic copies of assignments should be submitted via “Turn-it-in” NO LATER THAN THE DEADLINE.

Please ensure you follow the instructions provided by your module tutor and on the assessment brief. Submission of assessments must be done by submission date. Assignments not available at this time will be considered late unless an extension has been previously agreed.

Students who fail to submit assessments by the specified date (without an extension being granted or without accepted Mitigating Circumstances) will be subject to the following penalties:

• Up to 7 calendar days late = 10 marks subtracted but if the assignment would normally gain a pass mark, then the final mark to be no lower than the pass mark for the assignment.
• More than 7 calendar days late = This will be counted as non-submission and no marks will be recorded. 

Please note that it is your responsibility to ensure that the assignment is submitted in the format/s specified in the Module Guide or on the Assessment Brief.

YOU SHOULD ALWAYS ENSURE YOU KEEP A COPY OF ANY ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED.

In the case of exceptional and unforeseen circumstances, an extension of up to 14 days after the assessment deadline may be granted. This must be agreed by your Programme Leader, following a discussion the Module Tutor. You should complete an Extension Request Form available from Student Services and attach documentary evidence of your circumstances, prior to the published submission deadline.

Extensions over 14 calendar days should be requested using the Mitigating Circumstances procedure.

Some students with registered disabilities will be eligible for revised submission deadlines. Revised submission deadlines do not require the completion extension request paperwork.

Please see the Programme Handbook for further details. 

References

Level HE7 – It is expected that the Reference List will contain between fifteen to twenty-five sources. As a MINIMUM the Reference List should include four refereed academic journals and five academic books.

At the end of assignment presentation:

Declaration: At the end of the assessment you should also include a declaration of any software tools including Generative AI (GAI) applications that you used in developing and completing the assessment.

Ge Assessment Guidelines for Written Assessments Level HE7neral