UNIT FOUR: MONEY

I. Starting up:
A. Answer these questions individually. Then compare your answers with a partner.
QUIZ

1. How much cash do you have with you at the 4. If you go for a meal with someone you don’t
moment? Do you: know well, do you:
a. know exactly? a. offer to pay the whole bill?
b. know approximately? b. suggest dividing the bill into equal parts?
c. not know at all? c. offer to pay the whole bill but expect them
2. Do you normally check: to pay next time?
a. your change d. try to avoid paying anything?
b. your bank statements and credit card bills? 5. If you lend your friend a small amount of
c. your receipt when shopping? money and they forget to pay it back, do you:
d. prices in several shops before you buy a. say nothing?
something? b. remind them that they owe you money?
3. Do you: c. arrange to go for a drink with them and
a. give money to beggars? say you’ve forgotten your wallet or
b. give money to charities? purse?
c. give away used items, such as clothing?

B. What do your answers to the questions in exercise A say about your attitude to money? What do they
say about your culture.

II. Vocabulary: Financial terms

A. Match the definitions 1 to 6 with the financial terms a to f.
1. Money owed by one person or organization to another person or a. gross margin
organization. b. recession
2. a period of time when business activity decreases because the economy is c. shares
doing badly. d. debt
3. difference between the selling price of a product and the cost of producing it. e. stock market
4. a place where the company shares are bought and sold. f. investment
5. money which people or organization put into a business to make a profit.
6. equal parts into which the capital or ownership of a company is divided.

B. Match the sentences halves.

1. Earnings per share are a. a part of the profits of a company paid to the
owners of shares.
2. A forecast is b. a company’s profits divided by the number of its
shares.
3. Bankruptcy is c. a description of what is likely to happen in the
future.
4. A dividend is d. money in which businesses receive from selling
goods or services.
5. Pre-tax profits are e. when a person or organization is unable to pay
their debts.
6. Revenues are f. the money a business makes before payment to
the government

C. Complete this report with the terms from Exercises A and B.

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 In our home markets it has been another excellent year. 1……………… are up by £23 million, and the
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……………… for the next quarter is equally good. Profits from abroad are down because of a
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……………… in Japan. However, our performance overall has been good, and the 4……………… have
increased to 26.4p and the 5……………… will be increased to 4.3p per share, which will please our
shareholders.
We plan to issue new 6……………… in order to finance expansion in Asia. We also plan to increase our
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……………… in plant and equipment before entering the Chinese market. We are particularly pleased
with our performance in France and Germany where 8……………… have increased. As a result of using a
new distributor, our costs fell giving us a 9……………… of 40 percent on our main product line. We will
use any extra cash to reduce the level of our 10……………….
Our performance in Italy should improve significantly following the 11……………… of our biggest
competitor. However, we should not become too satisfied with our share price as economic conditions
remain uncertain and the 1……………… will continue to reflect this. Share prices will not rise in the short
term.

III. Listening: The Profit and Loss Account (P&L)

A. Study the incomplete P&L below. Complete the document with the following headings.

Research and development costs Cost of materials Gross profit

Interest receivable Turnover Dividend

B. Now listen to a presentation of the actual results and complete the missing figures for gaps a-h.
Consolidated Profit and Loss
For the year ended Dec 31 in $m

Forecast Actual
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Money in ___________ ___________ (sales revenue) 700 704

Other earnings 250 244

Gains on fixed assets and operations 175 162
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___________ on investments

Money out __________ Cost of making goods

3 a
___________ and all manufacturing expenses (100) _____
b
Money in minus cost of Salaries and personal costs (200) _____
making goods__________ 4___________ 825 c
_____

Other money out______ Other costs and expenses

Indirect costs and overheads (25) (22)
5 d
___________ (50) _____
Loss on fixed assets (25) (25)
Loss on foreign operations (100) (88)
e
Marketing and distribution costs (100) _____
Gross profit minus other
money out______________ f
Trading / operation profit 525 _____
g
Money left when 95 _____
shareholders have been Profit for shareholders (6___________) 430 h
_____
paid___________________ Retained profit

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C. Listen again and answer the following questions
1. Why was gross profit higher than expected?
2. Where did the company decide to have parts made?
3. Which budgets went over the forecast limits?
4. What is expected to happen to the marketing budget in future?
5. How much will shareholders receive per share?
6. What prediction does the speaker make about retained profit?

IV. Reading: Reporting financial success

A. Before you read the articles, decide which of these statements are true.
1. Both Wal-Mart and Target Stores are based in the UK.
2. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer.
3. Target is not a competitor of Wal-Mart.
B. Work in pairs. Student A read Article 1 below and Student B read Article 2. Complete the parts of the
chart which relate to your article.

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 Wal-Mart Target Wal-Mart Target
4th quarter 4th quarter Full year Full year
Total profit

% increase in profits / earnings

Earning per share

Sales revenues

C. Exchange information with a partner and complete the chart.

D. Read both texts and answer the questions. Which company:
1. feels confident about the future?
2. has developed a more fashionable image?
3. had particularly good results overseas in the last 12 months?
4. is not planning to increase prices?
5. did better than the American stock market forecast?
6. feels its success is due to the variety of its goods?
E. Match the words to make word partnerships from the text.
1. consumer a. division
2. tax b. pressure
3. international c. refunds
4. quarterly d. spending
5. price e. earnings
F. Read the articles again and check your answers. Match the word partnerships in exercise E to their
definitions.
1. the money people spend on goods and services
2. money given back at the end of the financial year
3. company profit for a three-month period
4. part of a company which deals with or is located overseas
5. decreasing or freezing the price of goods and services in order to gain an advantage over
competitors.
V. Language Skill: Giving presentations
I. Opening a presentation
1. Listen to the opening sentences of the three presentations and complete the table. Which presentations
are formal and which less formal?

Presentation 1 Presentation 2 Presentation 3

Presenter’s name
Presenter’s position / function
Topic of presentation
Who is the presenter for?

2. Listen to the openings again and complete the sentences.

Presentation 1
a. ………………………… , let me thank you all for being here today.

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b. Let me ………………… myself. My name is…
c. I’m here today to ………………… our new semi-automatic shelving system.
d. My talk is ……………… relevant to those of you who …………… for the different parts we supply.
Presentation 2
a. I’m happy that so many of you could ……………………… today at such short…………………………
b. As you can see on the ………………………, our ……………………… today is project documentation.
c. This is extremely …………………………….for all of us who are directly ……………………………..
in international project management, right?
Presentation 3
d. I’m …………………………….. that you all have very tight …………………………….., so I
appreciate you taking the time to come here to day.
e. As you ……………………know, my name is …............ I’m the new …………… manager here at
Weston Ltd.
f. Today’s topic will be very important for you as …………………………….. since ……………………
your help to evaluate and select candidates for training.

3. Put the sentences from above in the correct category (a-d)

a. Saying what the topic is: ………..
b. Welcoming the audience: ………..
c. Saying who you are: ………..
d. Saying why the topic is relevant for the audience: ………..
Now put a-d in the order you would use to start a presentation. ……….. ……….. ……….. ………..

II. Structuring a presentation

1. The project manager of a construction company is giving a presentation to his colleague. Put the
sentences in the right order. Then listen and check.
a. This morning I’d like to update you on the current status of work at the construction site. The
information I give you today should help you with planning your next steps.
b. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Gordon Selfridge. Let me just write that down
for you. OK. I’m the project manager in charge of the Bak Tower building project in Dubai.
c. I’ve divided my presentation into three parts.
d. Hello, every one.
e. Then I’ll move on to the problems we’re facing with our local suppliers.
f. First of all, let me thank you for coming here today. I’m aware that you’re all busy preparing for
the annual meeting this week, so I really appreciate you taking the time to be here.
g. I’ll start off by showing you some photos of the building site and discussing the progress we’ve
made since January.
h. My talk should take about 30 minutes. Please fell free to interrupt me at any time with questions.
i. I’ll end with some ideas for reducing labor costs that we’ve been looking into.
j. Oh, and don’t worry about taking notes. I’ll be handing out copies of the PowerPoint slides.

2. Complete the sentences with the prepositions in the box.

about at for into of on to with

a. Thank you ………… coming all this way.
b. I’ve divided my presentation ………… three parts.
c. First of all, I’ll give you an overview ………… our financial situation.
d. First, we’ll be looking ………… the company’s sales in the last two quarters.
e. In the first part of my presentation I’ll focus ………… the current project status.
f. Point one deals ………… APG’s new regulations for Internet use.
g. Secondly, I’ll talk ………… our investment in office technology.
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h. After that I’ll move on ………… the next point.
III.Referring to visual aids
1. What are these visuals called in English?Match the numbers to the descriptions.
a. bar chart c. technical drawing e. map g. pie chart
b. table d. flow chart f. graph h. organizational chart

Which of these visuals would you use to describe:

a. your company’s market share?
b. the steps to be followed from order placement to delivery of a product?
c. your company new organizational structure?

2. Listen to excerpts from these presentations and say what visuals are used.
Presentation 1: ____________ Presentation 2: ____________ Presentation 3: ___________
Now listen again and complete the sentences.
Presentation 1
1. The next _________ shows the _________ by age in our company.
2. You can see that the biggest _________ (…) indicates the _________ of employees in the age group
30 to 50.
Presentation 2
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 3. Let’s now _________ at the sales figures over the past five years.
4. The key in the bottom _________ corner shows you which colour _________ which area.
5. OK, so I’d like to first _________ your attention t the sales figures for France – that’s the blue line
here.
Presentation 3
6. Now I’d like you to _________ at this next _________ which shows how the cost of living
developed in Europe between 2003 and 2007.
7. If you look at the _________ on the _________, you will see that the highest increase was in 2001
with a rise of 2 _________.

3. Match the two parts to make sentences used to talk about visuals.
1. On the next page
2. My next slide shows
3. As you can see
4. Let me just show you some
5. To illustrate this
6. Let’s now have a look
7. Here we can see how many
8. I have a slide
9. I’d like to draw your
10. In the upper right hand corner
a. from this picture, the design is absolutely new.
b. you can see the specifications for the TP model.
c. customers have complained about the service.
d. how much the market has changed.
e. I’ll show you our latest poster.
f. attention to the figures in the lefthand column.
g. at the figures on the next page.
h. which shows the market development in 2005.
i. interesting details.
j. how you will see a photo of the new XTK model.

IV. Closing a presentation

1. Look at these sentences and put them in the correct category in the table.
1. I’ll just run through the three different options…
2. We’s suggest…
3. Now I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
4. We’d therefore recommend that we…
5. Before I stop, let me go through my main points again.
6. Well, this brings me to the end of my presentation.
CONCLUSION OF A PRESENTATION
Signalling the end of the presentation
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Summarizing the main points
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Recommending and suggestiong something
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Inviting questions
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
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2. Add the following phrases to the table above.
a. Thank you all for listening. f. Are there any questions?
b. In my opinion, we should… g. I’d like to run through my main points again…
c. We just have time for a few questions. h. As a final point, I’d like to …
d. To sum up then, we… i. I’m now nearing the end of my talk…
e. OK, I think that’s everything I wanted to say… j. Just to summarize the main points of my talk…
k. What I’d like to suggest is …