Western Washington University Financial Statement Analysis MBA 567 Project #1: Analyzing Financing Activities and Capital

Structure This assignment provides an opportunity to examine the financing activities and capital structure of two firms from the same industry with slightly different competitive approaches. The following comments and directions should help you formulate an effective approach to completing the assignment successfully. This is an individual assignment. You may ask me questions if you wish, but details of your project along with your overall approach should not be discussed with other people. To help everyone begin, we will devote the last-half of an upcoming class to a general discussion of topics to include and organizational strategies. Be prepared to contribute something to the conversation! In submitting this assignment, you affirm that your paper represents your original work; that your effort complies with both the form and the substance of the assignment; and that you have consulted only authorized support materials and sources.

1. This assignment focuses on the recent financing activities of GAP, Kohls, and Nordstrom. Based on your individual interest, please select two of these firms to include in your report. You will find PDFs of the three 2012 Annual Reports on our course Blackboard page. 2. Your analysis should emphasize significant aspects of these firms LT Liability and Shareholders Equity disclosures. You should also comment on the quality of accounting information provided, accounting policy choices, and measures of risk as these three issues apply to financing activities. 3. Consider evaluating the relevant portions of the MD&A, the balance sheet, the statement of cash flows, the statement of shareholders equity, and related financial notes. 4. The annual report PDFs are quite large. Therefore, I recommend saving the two youre using electronically and printing only the pages or sections that you need for this assignment. 5. You may omit the following topics: consolidations; stock options, employee stockbased compensation, and ESOPs; pensions and other postretirement benefits; deferred taxes; hedges and derivatives; and foreign currency activities. 1

6. Please observe professional quality standards in preparing your report. You may use an outline or bullet format, but you must write in complete sentences. Double space between paragraphs and single space within paragraphs. Please use reasonable margins and font sizes as well as standard grammar and punctuation rules (and footnotes where appropriate). 7. You should be able to present your text and exhibits in 3-4 pages. Please print on both sides and submit no more than two pieces of paper. 8. You have plenty of latitude in this assignment and, hopefully, just enough direction. If you need clarification, please stop in for a conversation. 9. The 75 points for this assignment will be awarded based on your ability to follow the directions, the quality of your analysis, and the quality of your presentation. 10. The assignment is due on Wednesday, April 24 th at class time.