The Final Assessment consists of a real-world case study and report where you will play the role of an analyst assigned to evaluate a public company (listed on the stock market) by computing various current financial, accounting, operating, and performance metrics for the company and then recommend specific financial and investment decisions you feel would be in the best interest of the company to increase its overall market value.
Metrics you may wish to compute and include in your report include:
Accounting ratios, covered in Case 6 (Holly Fashions)
Working Capital and the Cash Conversion Cycle, covered in Case 17 (Horton Building Supplies)
The fair intrinsic value of the company’s common stock, covered in Case 3 (Home Products)
Weighted Average Cost of Capital, covered in Case 30 (Taylor Brands)
For each metric computed, you will be expected to show all of your work, employing the specific techniques and formulas learned in the course. DO NOT use figures that have been computed by others, e.g., analyst reports on the web or in professional publications.
Next, recommend some specific investment and financial decisions you feel would benefit the company based on its current financial and competitive position. You may for example, wish to discuss potential capital investment opportunities (ref: Case 20, Fort Greenwald) or dividend policy (ref: Case 47, Anderson Autoparts). Again, you must refer in your report to the earlier conceptual course material and/or employ formulas provided in the cases or weekly lessons so I can see how and why you have arrived at your recommendation.
The subject company of your report can be drawn from any database of US public companies, and then analyzed utilizing the company’s annual and/or quarterly financial statements (for example: https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html). You may also access any additional public information on the company for your research; however, you must not duplicate or parrot any quantitative or qualitative information from other sources, for example analyst reports. This would be considered plagiarism and grounds for a failing grade on the assessment.
For extra credit, you can compute the fair value of the company by utilizing one or more of the Valuation techniques discussed in the course.
Your report should be about 2,500 words in length and contain a complete academic bibliography at the end.