need help with corporate finance project; due date is flexible
Advanced Corporate Finance Project As an elite team of management consultants, you are invited by the Board of Governors to review and advise on the financial management practices of the company of your choosing. What to submit? 1. Project report (word or pdf file): this should include your analysis, conclusions, and recommendations to your client. Use exhibits (charts, graphs, tables, etc.) to illustrate your findings. 2. Excel file: this should include your original data and calculations using the data. Data: Select the company that you would like to analyze and gather the following data: a. A recent quarterly or annual report of the company. Reading through one of the company’s quarterly or annual reports will help tremendously on understanding the company and the rest of the project. b. Gather at least two fiscal years of financial data from the company’s filings (ideally we would use a time series of four years. You can also choose to use previous four quarters). You should use Excel to store and process your data. The Excel file you use should be submitted as an attachment separately from the project report. c. Choose at least one comparable company to analyze. Give reasons and criteria you use in choosing comparables. You can also use industry averages as your benchmark. Project report: The project report should include, but not limited to: a. The introduction section should give a brief overview of the company’s business and segments. Reading through one of the company’s quarterly or annual reports will help tremendously on understanding the company and the rest of the project. b. Review the company’s capital structure (leverage), calculating appropriate ratios, tracking changes through the year, tax savings from interest (if any), indications of potential financial distress, etc. Compare the company’s policy with the comparable company’s capital structure (or the industry average). c. Review the company’s retain/payout, dividend/repurchase practices. Compare the company’s policy with the comparable company’s capital structure (or the industry average). d. Review the company’s short-term financial management practice, including, but not limited to, firm’s operating and cash cycle, accounting liquidity, short-term borrowings, and short-term investments in marketable securities. Compare the company’s policy with the comparable company’s capital structure (or the industry average). e. Choose ONE from the following topics of corporate finance on which to review the practice of the company of interest: 1) International operations, 2) Enterprise risk management, 3) use of Options, 4) past and potential Mergers and Acquisitions, 5) Leasing. Compare the company’s policy with the comparable company’s capital structure (or the industry average). f. In the concluding section you should give your evaluations (seals of approval) or recommendations separately on each aspect of financial management that you analyze. Note: a. Please make sure to include any assumptions you made in your analysis. b. Each project should turn in one version of the report.