Requirements

This assignment is to be completed individually. There is a word limit of 2000 words for this assignment. You must correctly use the
Harvard style of referencing
in this assessment.

Submission Instructions

An electronic copy of the final report must be uploaded to the unit website on Cloud Deakin by
5.00pm, 13 August 2018. Do not include the assignment questions in your submission as Turnitin will mistakenly identify a high level of similarity with another source.

The submission dropbox will open 7 days before the due date and close 5 days after the due date. If possible, please submit well before the cut-off time as you may experience high traffic closer to the cut-off time. The uploaded soft copy in CloudDeakin will be considered the official copy and it is the time of upload of this copy that will determine whether the assignment is submitted on time. Hard copies will not be accepted.

You must keep a backup copy of every assignment you submit, until the marked assignment has been returned to you. In the unlikely event that one of your assignments is misplaced, you will need to submit your backup copy. Any work you submit may be checked by electronic or other means for the purposes of detecting collusion and/or plagiarism. When you are required to submit an assignment through your CloudDeakin unit site, you will receive an email to your Deakin email address confirming that it has been submitted. You should check that you can see your assignment in the Submissions view of the Assignment dropbox folder after upload, and check for, and keep, the email receipt for the submission.

Late Submission

The following marking penalties will apply if you submit an assessment task after the due date without an approved extension: 5% will be deducted from available marks for each day up to five days, and work that is submitted more than five days after the due date will not be marked. You will receive 0% for the task. 'Day' means working day for paper submissions and calendar day for electronic submissions. The Unit Chair may refuse to accept a late submission where it is unreasonable or impracticable to assess the task after the due date.

Academic misconduct, extension, and other issues

For more information about academic misconduct, special consideration, extensions, and assessment feedback, please refer to the document:

Your rights and responsibilities as a student in this Unit

in the first folder next to the Unit Guide of the Resources area in the CloudDeakin unit site.

Extensions can only be approved by the Unit Chair (Dr Tze Chuan ‘Chewie’ ANG). Extensions can be granted for documented serious illness (not just on the day the assignment is due) or for compassionate reasons under extenuating circumstances. The unit chair can ask to see how much work has been completed before granting an extension. Work or holiday reasons are NOT grounds for an extension – you are expected to manage these issues as part of your studies. You are strongly encouraged to start early and to continually backup your assignment as you progress. Computer crashes or corrupted files will NOT be accepted as valid reasons for an extension of any length. For further information about Special Consideration, visit
http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/assessments/special-consideration.

Building evidence of your experiences, skills and knowledge (Portfolio)

Building a portfolio that evidences your skills, knowledge and experience will provide you with a valuable tool to help you prepare for interviews and to showcase to potential employers. There are a number of tools that you can use to build a portfolio. You are provided with cloud space through OneDrive, or through the Portfolio tool in the Cloud Unit Site, but you can use any storage repository system that you like. Remember that a Portfolio is your tool. You should be able to store your assessment work, reflections, achievements and artefacts in your Portfolio. Once you have completed this assessment piece, add it to your personal Portfolio to use and showcase your learning later, when applying for jobs, or further studies. Curate your work by adding meaningful tags to your artefacts that describe what the artefact represents.

Bega Cheese Limited

Background

Dairying started in the Bega Valley in the 1850’s. In those days each farmer produced and sold products, such as cheese and butter from their dairy. After a period of time, local farmers decided to improve their individual production and marketing activities and banded together to establish The Bega Co-operative Creamery Company in 1899. Bega’s original factory was opened in Bega in 1900.

From 2007 to date, Bega acquired the cheese assets of Kraft Foods, purchased the assets and operations of De Cicco Industries, and created a wholly owned subsidiary – Tatura Milk Industries. In August 2011, Bega was listed on the Australia Securities Exchange (ASX). In July 2017, Bega expanded its portfolio beyond dairy to include some of Australia’s most iconic and loved food brands and products, including Vegemite, ZoOSh, and Bega Peanut Butter.

Today, with sites from Bega to Melbourne and Northern Victoria, Bega now employs approximately 2,000 people. The company has evolved from its modest and localised co-operative heritage in Bega into a significant and innovative player in the Australian and international dairy industry. Bega’s original site at Lagoon Street still operates today, producing cheddar and mozzarella cheese and whey powders. There are now approximately 500 farms supplying the Bega group. The Company’s production of approximately 236,000 tonnes of dairy products equates to a sales turnover in excess of $1.2 billion per annum.

Source: Bega Cheese Limited website at https://www.begacheese.com.au/investors

Your task

You graduated from Deakin Business School recently. You are now a financial analyst at an investment and consulting firm in Australia. Your team leader, John is considering whether to include Bega Cheese Limited in a newly created investment fund, called Corporate and Social Responsible (CSR) Fund. He would like to include firms with a broader corporate objective in the fund. Specifically, he is interested in firms that not only maximize shareholders’ wealth, but also care for their stakeholders, which include their customers, employees, the society, and the environment. He values the importance of the board structure of firms, corporate governance, and compensation packages, which are helpful in aligning the interests of managers to those of shareholders’.

John wants you to write up a report about Bega’s corporate governance and corporate social responsibility, which includes the following points:

§ A summary of Bega’s current structure of the board of directors and an evaluation of such a structure using the recommended guidelines of good corporate governance.

§ An outline of the compensation package of Bega’s CEO and top executives and an evaluation of its effectiveness in delivering total returns to shareholders.

§ An identification of two major sources of risks that Bega may potentially face and an analysis of the strategies that Bega has in place to manage these risks.

§ A
brief
highlight of Bega’s other internal and external corporate governance mechanisms and a
brief
comparison of the differences between the corporate governance mechanisms in Australia and Europe.

§ A summary of Bega’s corporate social responsibility program, which includes its commitment to the environment, its employees, the community and other stakeholders; and an evaluation of the adequacy of Bega’s corporate social responsibility given the nature of its business and its mission.

You also need to include a concise executive summary (200-250 words) that clearly indicates whether Bega’s business operations are sustainable and satisfy the industry standard in terms of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility based on your research and analysis.

John is well-trained in finance and prefers reader-friendly financial reports written in a professionally manner. He expects your analysis to be rich in information and well structured. It should contain main points with the relevant descriptions and evidence from reliable sources or references. He also appreciates tables and/or graphs that help to illustrate the main points.

Helpful resources

§ Bega’s website and financial reports.

§ ‘Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations’ published by the ASX Corporate Governance Council.

§ KPMG’s reports (amongst others) on corporate governance - help in providing a broad, real-world perspective on the topic.

§ Lectures & Seminars 1 and 2 about corporate governance & corporate social responsibility.

§ Reports or opinion pieces written by financial analysts and/or portfolio managers.

§ Newspaper articles (e.g. The Age) and financial press (e.g. The Australian Financial Review)

§ Online search engines, such as Google and Yahoo.

Hints

§ You may discuss the main points with other students, but your report should be
unique.

§ Do not copy the original texts directly from another source (e.g. a report or article) without rewriting or paraphrasing them.