Your group is an investment adviser, working to build a foundation of wealth for your clients. One of your wealthiest clients already has a diversified portfolio, which includes managed funds, property; cash/fixed interest and a few direct share investments in Australia and around the world.

The assignment is a written comprehensive report and analysis of the firms’ financial performance (including referencing).

100 marks

Your group is required to do the following tasks:

1. Prepare a brief description of the company, outlining the core activities, the market(s) in which it operates within and any factors in the companies’ history which you consider help present a “picture” of your company.

   4 marks

2. Specify ownership-governance structure of the company: i) Name the main substantial shareholders:

   With higher than 20.00% of shareholdings. Based on this argument you should classify a firm as a family or non-family company, and  With higher than 5.00% of shareholdings.

   3 marks

   ii) Name the main people involved in the firm governance:

   The Chairman
   Board members
   CEO.
   o Whether any of these people have the same surname as any of substantial shareholders (>20% share capital). If yes- you could use this as an argument for the presence of an owner or family member(s) in the firm’s governance. o Whether any of shareholders with more than 5% share capital are involved in firm governance.

   3 marks

3. CalculatethefollowingFundamentalRatiosforyourselectedcompanyforthepast2

years. Annual reports are accessible via company websites:

• –  Short term solvency (Liquidity ratios)
• –  Long term solvency (Financial Leverage ratios)
• –  Asset utilization (efficiency or turnover ratios)
• –  Profitability ratios
• –  Market value ratios

4. UsingtheinformationfromtheASXwebsite:www.asx.com.auyoumustcompletethe following tasks:

20 marks

i)

Prepare a graph / chart for movements in the monthly share price over the last two years for the company that you are investigating. Plot them against movements in the All Ordinaries Index.

6 marks

ii) Write a report which compares movements in the companies’ share price index to the All Ords Index. For instance, how closely correlated is the line with the All Ords Index. Above or below? More or less volatile?

6 marks

5. Research via the internet or financial/business publications:
From research via the internet (using credible sources) or financial/business

publications, note any significant announcements which may have influenced the share price of your company. These factors could include merger activities, divestitures, changes in management’s earnings forecasts, changes in analysts’ forecasts, unusual write-offs or abnormal items, macroeconomic factors, industry wide factors, significant management changes, changes in the focus of the company, impact of competitors or law suits etc. (Restrict the number of announcements to 5).

10 marks