Individual coursework Corporate Reporting
It is an analysis of the company Home Serve's Annual Report 2017. Client have included the assignment brief, and the marking criteria as well as Home Serves annual report for 2017.
During your first or second seminar you should agree with your seminar tutor a choice of a FTSE 350 company (from a designated list). Each student in a seminar group will be expected to choose a different company from this list.
Once your choice is agreed you should start to build up an electronic portfolio on your chosen company (although it is more than likely this will be a group of companies).
Potential sources of relevant information are:
Internal
- most recent annual report and accounts. This can be found by searching online for your company and usually 'investor relations'.
- other corporate website material (e.g. interim reports, quarterly trading statements and other company announcements)
External
- share price information (can be obtained from various websites e.g. London Stock Exchange / Yahoo! Finance etc or from Bloomberg)
- financial and business press for relevant news articles on the company and its business sector (e.g. BBC or FT.com)
- other media e.g. Bloomberg (Bloomberg Room on Adsetts Level 4)
Requirements -
You are required to prepare a report on your chosen company (Home Serve's Annual Report 2017) that would be of interest to a potential shareholder to include the following:
1. Header page with your name, student ID and chosen company
2. Introduction to include:
2.1 Company name/most recent financial year-end date/name of external auditors
2.2 A brief description of the company's business model (an explanation of what the company does and any distinguishing features) - maximum 100 (of your own) words
3. Financial details and ratios (include these in the Appendix, see 6 below. This section is excluded from the word count)
Prepare a table setting out the following variables for the most recent and previous financial year:
3.1 Revenue (also by segment if available), cost of sales (if available), gross profit, (if available), profit from operations (this may need to be calculated) and profit for the year
3.2 Non-current assets, current assets, current liabilities, non-current liabilities and equity
3.3 Cash generated from operations, net cash in/outflow from operations, net cash in/outflow from investing activities, net cash in/outflow from financing activities and the net increase/decrease in cash for the period
3.4 Market capitalisation (number of ordinary shares x share price) as at your company's reporting date (and at their previous reporting date). You must show your workings.
3.5 Suitable ratios covering: overall performance, profitability, activity, liquidity, financial structure, investment and cash flow (maximum 14 ratios per year)
You should ensure you show clear workings to support the ratios, linking your numbers back to the financial statements and justifying your numbers where there are choices.
4. Analysis and interpretation (1500 words)
4.1 Analyse the financial performance and position of your chosen company over the last two years in a way that would be helpful to a potential shareholder.
Your report should give possible explanations for any changes in performance and position that you have identified from the ratios (in section 3 above) and from the financial statements. You are NOT required to explain the meaning of the ratios calculated.
4.2 Comment on the performance and position of your chosen company since the most recent financial year end, up to Saturday 31 December 2017.
5. Possible improvements to your chosen company's Annual Report (500 words)
Recent reports issued by the FRC Lab discuss how the Annual Reports of UK Companies could be improved.
Comment on 3 aspects of your chosen company's Annual Report which could be changed to make it more useful for a potential shareholder.
For each of the 3 aspects:
- identify the aspect (state the page number in the Annual Report) and briefly outline why this particular area needs improving
- suggest possible changes that could be made to make the Annual Report more helpful to potential shareholders for this particular aspect
- explain why the change you propose would make it more helpful for potential shareholders.
(For the examples identified in part 5 above, include the relevant pages of the Annual Report in the Appendix (see part 6 below) and be specific about what your chosen company could do to improve their Annual Report).
6. Appendix/Appendices to include:
a) Financial details and ratios (see Section 3 above)
b) Bibliography
c) Copies of key other relevant information (e.g. strategic report, media articles, other notes to the financial statements) that you have referred to in your report.
Attachment:- Assignment File.rar