Assignment:
The company that you choose will be "your SLP company" for the entire course. State the name of that company in each of the Session Long Project reports.
Search for the company's website and find the section called "Investor Relations" to obtain the financial information of the company over the past several years. For the first module, write a 3 to 4 page paper answering the following questions:
1) Provide a brief description of the company you chose, its main business and operational activities and a short synopsis of the main developments of the company over the past few years.
To answer Question 1, include the following, together with other information that you would like to provide:
- Current stock price of the company.
- Company sales/revenue for the past three years (e.g., 2010, 2011, 2012).
- Company profitability (net income) for the past three years.
- Total assets for the past three years.
- Total liabilities for the past three years.
- Owners' equity for the past three years.
- Other financial information you find relevant.
Use a table to provide the above information.
2) Explain why you chose this company (e.g., what makes it interesting to you personally? Is it profitability of the company over the last three years or something else?). Keep in mind that one of the main goals of a for-profit corporation is the "maximization of shareholders' wealth."
3) This is the main part of the assignment. Find out what you can about your SLP company's IPO. If it is a newer corporation, this should not be too difficult. But if it is an older company this might be difficult.If you cannot find any information about your company's IPO, discuss how you would go about taking your company public using what you have learned from the background materials and from Question 1.
Keep in mind that the Securities and Exchange Commission will not approve a financially weak and unprofitable company to be listed on a stock exchange.
4) What do you perceive you have learned in the Module 1 SLP? Which of the following learning outcomes do you feel you have mastered?
- Identify success factors for a firm making the IPO decision.
- Describe the steps a firm must take in order to go public.
Note: Your report/assignment will not be accepted without proper citations and references. You must use the sources from the background material together with the sources you find on your own. It is also required that you answer all the questions related to learning outcomes.