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ACFI302 ASSESSED COURSEWORK 2023-24

To: Accountant

Subject: Report Request

I have received substantial sums from investors in the last few months. We therefore want to expand our portfolio of investments by taking a significant minority investment in a company.

The company can be located anywhere in the world, but I would want it to be listed on a stock exchange so that I can monitor our investment. There are certain industries or companies we have no interest in. We do not want to invest in a football club, or a financial institution (banks or insurance company) so do not select these. Finally, we want this to be a unique piece of work so do not select a company you have done previous reports on, so not Airbus or a company from ACFI 120 Data Analysis if you did it.

I would like you to write a report containing three sections: 

A. Firstly, I would like you to report on the company’s financial performance, position and cash flow based on the most annual report of the company. These financial statements must have been issued (i.e., released to the public) after 21 February 2023.

This report should include a comparison to competitors, or to industry averages, and I would like you to provide a recommendation as to whether Mariner Capital should invest in the company or not.

B. Secondly, I would like you to select ONE of the current issues covered in the lectures in week 7 in respect of financial reporting and discuss its relevance to your company, using the financial statements to support your discussion.

C. Finally, I would likely to discuss the significance of judgements made during the application of a specific accounting standard in relation to your company. This should discuss why this standard is key in relation to the company and the role that judgement plays in how it has been applied.

REQUIREMENTS:

Part 1:

Respond to Ivano’s email by preparing a report of no more than 5,000 words. (90%)

Part 2:

Prepare an A1 graphic summarising the key findings of the report. The graphic should be based on section one of the report and your investment decision. You will be then answering questions on your report at a presentation event on Thursday May 2, so your graphic must be printed in time for that event.  (10%)

The submission deadline for BOTH elements of the report is Friday April 26, 2024, at 5pm. Standard penalties apply for late submission.

1. Instructions

The report should be produced as a Word file. This should be presented in a professional manner, using appropriate fonts and sizing. The presentation of the report will form part of the grade so the use of headings and page breaks is recommended.

This coursework requires single submission of each item of your assessment (one submission for the report, one for the poster) via Turnitin, which is a plagiarism and collusion detection system. If you do not submit to Turnitin your work will not be marked.

The submission deadline for BOTH elements of the module is Friday 26 April 2024.

Standard penalties apply for late submission.

The maximum length of the report is 5,000 words. The standard Management School penalties are applied for exceeding this word count. There is no acceptable margin above this limit. Please note that the word count does not include the title page, contents, appendices, and bibliography. It does include the citations used during the body of the report and any titles on graphs (my advice would be to paste the graphs as images).

This overall assignment will contribute 100% of the available marks on this module.

The university's rules and penalties with respect to plagiarism apply to all assessed work. The work must be entirely your own. Referencing of sources of information used must be made in a bibliography, including detailed website addresses. Further information on how to reference can be found here: https://libanswers.liverpool.ac.uk/faq/49505

2. Guidance notes – Writing the report (Part 1)

Do NOT select football clubs or banking/insurance companies (Tesco is OK, even though they have a banking section it is not the main part of the company). Also, you cannot select a business (or direct competitor) that you have written a report on previously during your degree. This means not selecting Airbus or the company you chose for ACFI 120 Data Analysis for Accountants if you studied this.

Your answer should be based on the information available in the company's annual report, and any other relevant financial information. You should make use of the wide range of research tools made available to the university. The breadth of research covered, in conjunction with the suitability of the source, will be considered as part of the grade.

Section A

Part one of the report should assess performance, position and cash flow as separate propositions, so you should separate the report into those specific headings. As a guide, the performance section is normally expected to be around the same length as the position and cash flow sections combined.

Explaining what has occurred (e.g. gross profit margins increased by 10%) is not enough. You should try to attempt to explain why changes happened, and when during the year.

Be imaginative. Do not just use textbook ratios. Think what is relevant to your company. (For example, for a retail business the revenue per square metre of floor space could be important. For an airline it might be seat utilisation). If your company refers to key specific metrics in its annual report, consider comparing these with competitors.

Consider the presentation of the report. Graphs are a useful way of presenting information clearly to the user and can be used to provide excellent comparisons between different periods and different entities. Any tables of numbers should be included in an appendix to the report (which is not included within the word count).

Section B

Part two of the report will involve you selecting one of the ‘current issues in financial reporting’ covered within ACFI 302 and explaining how it is relevant to the company you have chosen. This discussion can briefly outline the issue but should be mainly focused on how it is relevant to your chosen company, using specific examples from the annual report.

Section C

Part three of the report will require you to select one accounting standard. You should explain why it is a key standard for the entity but then focus on any estimates or judgemental decisions required in its application by the entity. This should then discuss how the application compares a competitor or the wider industry.

When deciding which accounting standard to cover, consider items such as the size of the balance, the risk of the balance and any significant judgements that have been required. When this is being marked, part of the grade will be on whether this is deemed to be a key standard or not, so don’t just choose the easiest one!

3. Guidance notes – Preparing the poster (Part 2)

The poster should be an A1 poster summarising the key points of your investment decision from section A of your report. It should contain some of the key graphs from your report with the most important points. It should be designed professionally and give sufficient information for a professional to ask questions at the presentation event.

You must upload the file to Canvas by the deadline but also ensure the physical copy is printed in time for the presentation event. We have secured funding for you to print the poster on campus but note that this will require 48 working hours, so you will need to submit that for printing in plenty of time for the event. There are print facilities in the city that do same-day printing but you will be responsible for covering that cost yourself if you choose to do it.

4. Further guidance and support

The lectures, podcasts and seminars produced during the course will provide further guidance and content which will be useful for the report. The first few weeks of content will focus on part one of the report, looking at the research tools available and how to analyse a company’s performance, position and cash flow.

Therefore, it is recommended to initially focus on the completion of part one of the report. This is likely to take the bulk of your time and will involve extensive research. Don’t assume this will be completed within the first few weeks as a full depth of research will be immediately obvious upon marking the report.

As the course goes on, the lectures, podcasts and seminars containing information for sections B and C being provided prior to the Easter break. It is suggested to look at these sections once section A is underway, at least to identify the areas you will choose. Information on the poster presentation will be provided just after Easter.

We will provide all materials for the written report prior to Easter so that you have all of the material covered going into the Easter break, allowing you to use the holiday to finish and submit the report if you so choose.

A discussion board has been created on Canvas where you can post any questions that you may have regarding this assignment.

Please refer to the Accounting and Finance Student Handbook 2023-24 for guidance on;

- Word counts;

- Style and layout of assessment;

- Marking descriptors;

- Penalties for late submission of work;

- Other ULMS coursework penalties;

You can find a copy of the Accounting and Finance Student Handbook 2023-24 at the programme page on Canvas.

5. Marking Criteria

The table below illustrates the criteria we will use when marking your assessment and the percentage weighting given to each element:

As a guide, it is expected that section A of the report will be between 3,000 and 3,500 words, with sections B and C being between 750 and 1,000 words each.

In section A you should balance your answer across all sections of performance, position and cash flow. As the performance section will cover an analysis of revenue, profits and share price it is expected that this will be the biggest of these areas.

A good guide is for the performance section to be around the same size as the position and cash flow sections combined (ie 1,500 words on performance and 750 each on position and cash flow). This will vary depending on what is the most important information in your report, but these are rough guidelines to consider.