Evaluate a company’s financial performance

SUMMATIVE ASSIGNMENT

 

Part A

The main theme of this part of the assignment is corporate reporting and analysis. This part requires you to select a company in accordance with the essential criteria and further guidance provided on Learn Ultra to complete the tasks specified below.

You are required to:

2021. Evaluate the company’s financial performance as reported in the Income Statement for its accounting period which ended between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021. This period is your primary focus, but you are also required to consider how the company has performed compared to the two preceding accounting periods. You should include copies of the Income Statements within an appendix.

You should explain how the business works and why it performed as it has, through consideration of the factors affecting the company, the strategies it has pursued and the economic and industrial context in which it operates. You should draw on the narrative of the annual report together with relevant notes on matters such as segmental performance and exceptional (non-recurring) items to inform your evaluation.

You are not required to compare this company’s performance with any other company, although reference to market average data, if available, could be relevant. You are not required to evaluate the Statement of Financial Position for any of the years involved, although the statement would be relevant if aspects of it have impacted on company performance e.g., additional debt has increased the finance cost.

(40 marks)

 

2021. Evaluate the use of performance measurement by this company in its annual report for its accounting period which ended between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021. You should compare this with the current use of performance measurement by another company operating broadly in the same business sector. You should explore why the two companies have chosen their respective performance measures and how they might aid in the monitoring and improvement of company performance.

It is not necessary for the comparator company to use the same accounting date as your main company, but it does need to be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

 

 

 

 

You should evaluate:

1. The financial performance measures the companies consider in their annual reports, including investment ratios.

 

1. The non-financial performance measures they consider in their annual reports.

 

• How the non-financial performance measures adopted will benefit the companies and their stakeholders.

 

1. The overall performance of the companies based on their chosen performance measures (discussed here, in part b) by providing justifications for your choice.

 

(Part A word limit: 2900 words)

 

(40 marks)

 

Part B

This part of the assignment covers the Management Accounting elements of the module. You are required to write an essay to critically discuss the following statement:

‘Budgeted performance is a better criterion than past performance for judging managers’.

You are expected to provide an argument to support the statement above. You should also consider the possible counter arguments in your work.

 

(Part B word limit: 600 words)

(20 marks)

 

 

 

Overall word limit: 3500 words

 

 

 

 

 

Part A Guidance Notes:

Essential Criteria for Company Selection

The main company you choose:

1. must be listed on the London Stock Exchange. As an example, this could be from one of the FTSE100 or FTSE250 lists of companies.
2. 2. must have published a full annual report for an accounting period which ended on a date between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021.

 

Additional Guidance on Company Selection

The data must be obtained from a credible source such as the company’s website.

It is important that you choose a company with Income Statements with which you are comfortable and preferably with a Strategic Report which features clear disclosure of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

 

You should spend some time choosing your company. You may find some annual reports more user-friendly than others. Before engaging fully with the annual report, you should ensure that it gives you adequate scope to address all aspects of the assignment brief.

 

It is not necessary for the company you choose to be performing well: your task is to evaluate the given aspects of its annual report objectively.

You cannot choose any of the companies featured in the lecture or seminar materials on this module to be your main or comparator company (for part b).

 

Having chosen a valid main and comparator company (for part b), you are advised to visit their websites, which may be a valuable source of background information. Annual reports for the current year and prior years are usually available to view and/or download within the website area entitled ‘investors’, ‘investor relations’ or ‘about our company’.

 

Please note that whilst you are expected to make use of the full annual reports, you are required to demonstrate your own analytical skills. You must NOT depend on the disclosed ratios in the annual reports and/or simply reproduce parts of the company report.

 

If you do make use of text, charts, tables or any other material published in the annual report, please ensure that you acknowledge this, as failure to do so would constitute plagiarism.

 

Assignments should be typed, using 1.5 spacing and an easy-to-read 12-point font. Assignments and dissertations/business projects must not exceed the word count indicated in the module handbook/assessment brief.

The word count should:

• Include all the text, including title, preface, introduction, in-text citations, quotations, footnotes and any other items not specifically excluded below.
• Exclude diagrams, tables (including tables/lists of contents and figures), equations, executive summary/abstract, acknowledgements, declaration, bibliography/list of references and appendices. However, it is not appropriate to use diagrams or tables merely as a way of circumventing the word limit. If a student uses a table or figure as a means of presenting his/her own words, then this is included in the word count.

Examiners will stop reading once the word limit has been reached, and work beyond this point will not be assessed. Checks of word counts will be carried out on submitted work, including any assignments or dissertations/business projects that appear to be clearly over-length. Checks may take place manually and/or with the aid of the word count provided via an electronic submission. Where a student has intentionally misrepresented their word count, the School may treat this as an offence under Section IV of the General Regulations of the University.

 

Very occasionally it may be appropriate to present, in an appendix, material which does not properly belong in the main body of the assessment but which some students wish to provide for the sake of completeness. Any appendices will not have a role in the assessment – examiners are under no obligation to read appendices and they do not form part of the word count. Material that students wish to be assessed should always be included in the main body of the text.

MARKING GUIDELINES

Performance in the summative assessment for this module is judged against the following criteria:

• Relevance to question(s)

• Organisation, structure and presentation
• Depth of understanding
• Analysis and discussion
• Use of sources and referencing
• Overall conclusions

END OF ASSESSMENT