Written Assignment. As stated in the Syllabus, for this assignment you will discuss your chosen company. You should introduce the company, giving a brief history and background. Also, you should report on the company's results for the fiscal year, based on the Annual Report (10-K) you reviewed. Some of the information is about some of the items you have already looked for. Here is an outline of the things you should discuss.
Please use your own words. Do not copy and paste. Your paper should be written in paragraphs and sentences, except the table below.
I. Introduction. Discuss the history of company, founders of the company, what the core business is (i.e., what does the company sell?), who are its customers (i.e., are they consumers, other businesses, a combination?).
II. Financial results
a. Complete a table like the one below. You can copy and paste this table and then complete it with your company's information
Table 1
Financial Results for (Insert Your Company Name Here)
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Amount (Convert to Millions or Billions)
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Balance Sheet Items:
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Total Current Assets
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Total Assets
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Total Current Liabilities
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Total Liabilities
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Total Liabilities + Total Owners' Equity
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Income Statement Items:
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Total Revenue
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Cost of Goods Sold (or Cost of Product Sales)
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Gross Profit (Total Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold)
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Net Income
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Profit Margin (Net Income/Total Revenue)
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b. Balance Sheet Results. Using the results from the Balance Sheet items, comment on your company's results. You should discuss and compare at least three of the items from your balance sheet results. Before presenting your analysis, define the terms you are discussing and cite a source like your textbook, to demonstrate that you know the meaning of the terms you are discussing. For instance, if you discuss current liabilities, you should explain what that term means. You can also discuss other balance sheet items like non-current assets or long-term liabilities if you want to, but you should also define any additional terms.
c. Income Statement Results. Using the results from the Income Statement items, comment on your company's results. As mentioned above, define the terms you discuss, cite a source, and discuss at least three of the items.
III. Conclusion.
a. Make closing remarks about the results you found for your company. Were you surprised about anything? Did you learn anything about your company that you did not expect? Do you think your company has a bright future or a dim future? Is there anything about your company's operations you would change? You do not have to discuss all of these. Just pick at least one thoughtful aspect of the company to discuss.
b. What did you think, overall, of the SEC Project? Did it add value to your course experience or not?
Do not forget, the dollar amounts for your companies are reported in the millions or in the thousands. For instance, an amount reported in the millions as $75,399 would have 6 zeroes added, making the amount $75,399,000,000. In your paper you would report this amount as $75.4 billion. An amount of $625 reported in the millions would be reported as $625 Million.
The paper should be around four pages in length, single spaced, with one inch margins on all sides. That excludes the Title page and References page. Use 'headers' for sections. Double space between paragraphs. The paper is your opportunity to use accounting terms and concepts from our class and relate them to a company of interest to you.
The Title Page of your paper should look like the title page of this paper, modified to show your name, course section number, date and company. You should have a separate References (or Works Cited) Page at the end. The References page is not included in the page count.
Use your own words. I use your written assignments to evaluate whether you understand the concepts and materials you are learning about in this course. Thus, you should explain in your own words, and then cite the source that was the basis of your knowledge about the topic. Do not copy and paste material. If you copy and paste any financial statements or areas from the SEC 10-K this will not count toward the page length requirement. Take care to avoid issues of academic dishonesty. Cite! Cite! Cite! Your works cited list should include the web address for your SEC 10-K, and our textbook, if that is where you obtained definitions of accounting terms. Any other resources should be cited in text using APA style. We use APA style for in text citations and for the works cited list. Do not use "WIKIs" like Wikipedia or Investopedia as sources. Last, do not use accounting or business terminology that you just learned about without explaining what it means. For instance, you should not mention a term like "current ratio" unless you are prepared to define it and explain what it means in the context of your paper!
Powerpoint Slide
You will need to prepare a Powerpoint presentation and post it to the SEC Discussion forum set up for that purpose. You will also need to comment on at least one classmate's presentation.
Your Powerpoint Slide Presentation should have a maximum of 8 slides including the Title slide and References slide. The slides should include the following items.
1. Title slide. Course Name, Number and Section, Instructor's Name, Assignment Name (Including Name of your Assigned Company), Date, Your Name
2. Introduce your company. Show at least 3 bullets, telling things like company history, type of business, founder. Please do not copy and paste passages from the company's website or other sources. Use your own words. Remember to keep your bulleted information brief.
3. Provide demographic information. Examples are the geographic markets served, number of stores/manufacturing facilities, other countries the company operates in. You could also mention if the company has a large online retail presence. If your company is a manufacturer, your customers are not consumers! Choose 3 or 4 items you think are important for your company.
4. Information from the Income Statement. Tell what total revenues (Sales) were, largest expense (most likely to be Cost of Goods Sold, or Cost of Sales), and Net income. Calculate Profit Margin. That is Net Income/Revenues. This is expressed as a percentage. For instance, NI of $12 million and Revenues of $200 million gives a profit margin of .06, or 6%. Note - Profit margin is not the same as gross profit margin!
5. Information from the Balance Sheet. Tell what total Assets were. Tell what total Owners' Equity was. Using the Accounting Equation,
Assets = Liabilities + Owners' Equity, determine what Total Liabilities were.
6. Concluding Slide. Tell if you think your company has a bright future or not, and tell why.
7. References Slide. This should have, at a minimum the link to your company's 10-K and the company's website.
Remember your zeroes! You should express large dollar amounts in the millions or billions. If an amount is greater than $999 million (i.e., $1,000 million), then it should be reported in the billions (e.g., $1 billion)
Responding to a Classmate. For the Week 6 PPT Draft forum, you should post twice to the SEC Discussion. Post once with your draft of the Powerpoint slides for your company attached. Be sure to post the name of your company in the Subject Line. Then, post a response to a classmate's SEC post. Compare your company to your classmate's results and tell which company is doing better in your opinion, explaining why you think so.