Accounting Final Report

Context

For your final project, your group will assume the role of a financial analyst and conduct research for a client (e.g., an individual investor or a portfolio manager). The objective of your report is to critically analyze the financial statements of a company and evaluate its performance and financial position.

Company

After your group composition is determined, I will distribute a list of companies and their peers. Each group will select a company-peer pair and inform me of their choice by email. This choice should be made by Monday, June 30. I will then provide a series of milestones to achieve. By achieving these milestones, you will be able to turn in your project report without undue stress in the last week.

Deliverable

A hard copy of the written report is to be given to me on Wednesday, September 3.

Report Parameters

The length of the report should not exceed ten pages. This excludes supporting analyses / tables/ figures provided as appendices. Your report should be typed, double-spaced and you should use standard type-size (e.g., 12 point Times New Roman). Please do not put plastic or cardboard covers on your report. Points will be taken off if you do not adhere to these guidelines.

I would like the project write-up to be easy to read. It should be a condensed report of your work (i.e., not a detailed compilation of all the information you collected).

I will grade the reports on the basis of their content, organization, and clarity.

Content

The report will be divided into the following sections:

a. Business Description

b. Strategy and Industry

c. Financial Statement Analysis

d. Conclusion.

A key feature of the project is that it requires you to identify and obtain relevant information. Thus, in addition to being evaluated on your ability to apply the tools of analysis described in the course, you will also be evaluated on your ability to identify and obtain the relevant information.