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Analyst Report
FNCE3000 Corporate Finance
Semester 1, 2024
1. Overview
Assessment Schedule*
Task Participants Weight (%) Date due
Analyst Report Individual / Group 40 Friday 12 April 11.59 pm (AWST)
Portfolio Individual 30 Sunday 5 May by 11.59 pm (AWST)
Interactive Oral Individual 30 Monday 13th May – Friday 24th May
*Pass requirements: Students are required to attempt and submit all assessment tasks and achieve an overall
mark of 50 or above to pass the Unit.
Through these exercises, you will gain a better understanding of how corporate finance concepts
can be applied in the real world. This is an excellent opportunity for those who wish to pursue a
career as a finance officer / manager.
For those who are taking this unit as an elective, it provides the foundation and tools needed to
investigate the financial health of a company and assist in the decision to purchase its shares for
investment.
2. Communication
If you have any queries, please try to approach your tutors first, lecturers second and unit
coordinator last;
Written communication is preferred;
When sending emails to the unit coordinator, please use this format in your subject field:
CF, <last name>, <first name>, <student ID>,<location>
E.g. CF3000, Smith, John, 123456A, Bentley.
The purpose of the email should be stated in the first line of the main body. Failure to follow this
format may result in a delayed response. The UC oversees 500+ students across various units,
locations, and modes, making it challenging for him to comprehend your query promptly and
respond in a timely manner.
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3. Analyst Report (40%)
Formation of a group is preferred but optional. Students may create groups with a maximum
of 2 (two) members to complete the assignment. To do so, students must complete and sign the
group sign-up form (available under the assessments tab in Bb) and submit it by Sunday, 17th
March, 11:59 pm (AWST) (week 3). This submission must be made via Turnitin, and both
group members must sign the sign-up sheet. Only one submission per group is required;
submitting two separate entries is evidence of a lack of communication between group
members and may incur a penalty. If you have chosen to complete the assignment
individually, you must still submit the group form with only your details and signature.
Failure to submit the group form by the deadline will result in a penalty of up to 10% of the
overall assignment marks, at the UC's discretion.
It is your responsibility to form a group and allocate tasks. Exchange phone numbers and
relevant contact details with your group member. Moreover, you are to discuss and collaborate
with your group member via a cloud platform, e.g., Google Docs. The assignment will be
assessed according to the rubrics and criteria provided at the end of this document.
The presentation of the assignment should be in 1.5 lines spacing and 12pt font. It should not
exceed 4,000 words. A variation of +/- 10% of this limit is acceptable, but you must inform
your tutor before submission. The word count excludes tables, diagrams, charts, and AGLC
references.
You are to select a publicly listed dividend paying company from the country of your study
location (e.g. Australia for the Bentley campus) and conduct a detailed analysis on it.
Please go through the 5 checklist at the next page before you commence your
assignment. Selection of a company that do not meet the criteria will incur a 30%
penalty.
Australia based students must NOT select Domino’s Pizza (DMP), BHP Group Ltd (BHP),
Fortescue Metals Group Limited (FMG), Wesfarmers (WES), Telstra (TLS), JBHiFi (JBH),
Harvey Norman (HVN), Northern Star Resources (NST), Woolworths (WOW), banks,
insurance companies, REITs and investment companies. If you are unsure, please check with
your tutor/lecturer during tutorial / lecture / consultation hours.
The purpose of this assignment is to use your acquired knowledge from this unit to investigate
the financial strength of a public listed company. Your research should cover the following 4
sections:
Shareholder analysis (15%) – Who are the owners of the company and the implication
to the choice of methods used to calculate the cost of return.
Risk-return analysis (15%) – Analyse the return received over the market for the
apparent risks identified in the company.
Cost of capital (40%) – Calculate the cost of capital using various methods and analyse
your findings.
Financial statement analysis (30%) – Determine the future of the company by
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analysing the performance of the company.
In each of these sections, you are to report your findings using the format provided below. If the
information is not from the company’s annual report, you will have to provide details on:
where you sourced the information; and
comment on how you have verified its reliability.
If the information is from the annual report, you do not need to reference, but you must include the
page number of the annual report from which the information has been taken, for example: (pg
XX).
The assignment must be written completely by you and your group members. You are not to purchase
or reproduce commercial stock reports.
5. Refinitiv Workspace
All students will receive their own login details for Refinitiv Workspace by week 3. This web-based
database platform is extensively used in the industry and will add value if you could develop some
expertise in using it. The UC will run a workshop during the lecture in week 4. You are also welcome
to see the UC during the consultation hour if you need more assistance in using the database.
Assignment format template. The headings below are the headings of your assignment. Refer to
lecture and tutorial discussions of week 2, 3 and 4.
1. Shareholder analysis:
1. Summary of the business (what they do and how they make money)
1 Short description of the main operations of the business and the services or
products that they offer
Investigate the business’ revenue sources
If they have multiple revenue sources, investigate, and summarise them
Summarise by using table or diagrams
DO NOT reproduce material from website or annual reports
1. Chairman/Director’s message
2 Determine the potential target audience by assessing the:
i. Tone
ii. Words
iii. Theme
Compare chairman’s message with 3 other companies (from different industry or
sector)
1. Profile of an investor of the company
3 With the use of graphs and charts to illustrate, describe the characteristics of a
typical investor for your chosen company.
State clearly your assumptions of investors outside the top 20. (you may refer
Refinitive workspace to justify)
Ignore internal risks; such as investment and financing decisions, credit, health
and safety, compliance and human resource management are all internal risks;
ignore them.
Competition and climate change are not risks (although they may appear in
the annual report).
Do not discuss Covid as a risk as there are other factors that must be
considered, such as government assistance and support, reduction of
competitors, difference in state border restrictions, etc.
In your discussion, show evidence of every risk you have identified and
explain why your company is more susceptible to that risk than other
companies. No marks are awarded for risks that are identified without clearly
showing evidence that they have impacted the company.
This can be done in a few ways. Below are some examples, which are not
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exhaustive:
• relevant newspaper articles,
• correlation with identified variables, trend analysis
• comparison with competitors, etc.
• Share price decrease can be visual way to show the impact of the
risk in the past.
Do not address the steps taken by the company to address or reduce the risks.
2.2 Review of shareholder vs market returns (discrete)
The total return to the shareholder is the capital growth plus the dividend
received.
Use the ending share price for each of the reporting period as stated in the
annual report. If they are not presented there, only then you will source them
from Morningstar DatAnalysis (via Curtin library). Using the closing
unadjusted prices, calculate the one-year change in share price of the stock.
Use the dividend paid for the reporting period as stated in the annual report. If
the share is franked, you will have to gross it up to account for franking credits
and include special dividends. Look at the payment date of the dividends. As
dividends stated on the annual report are often the declaration date, you may
have to refer to the previous year’s annual report.
Use All Ordinaries (AORD) as your index. Follow the same period as your
annual report.
Calculating the total returns for the shareholder must be done paying particular
attention to the following:
• Time frames must match your annual report and index returns
• You have to include both the interim and final dividend and any
special dividends paid for the period.
• Look at payment date
• You have to gross the dividends up to include the franking credits.
Franking credits are only applicable for this section. Do not include
them in your cost of capital section
Note: in this equation, Dividend = total dividend paid for the period. If the
franking proportion is different for interim, final or special dividend, you will
need to do it separately and then add them up to get grossed up dividend.
Companies can also be rolling out projects previously announced. You will
need to look back at previous annual reports (include year and page number).
Do not reference commentaries, stock reports or news articles.
If the shareholders deemed that the risk are too high, they would demand a
higher return, and this will often result in the lower share price upon the
project announcement.
Capital projects are not cost savings, such as staff cuts, efficiencies, reduced
cost of inputs, etc. You should look for announcements of investments into
projects like acquiring a business, machinery, new premises, etc.
Discuss how are the risks identified in section 2.1 affect the profitability of the
capital projects?
β: Investigate the company’s beta from various sources (at least 3, eg.
Morningstar DatAnalysis (via Curtin library), Reuters, Yahoo Finance, etc).
Choose a beta from one (1) provider and discuss the following to explain
your justification.
i. Time period (how far back)
ii. Calculation method (variables used)
iii. Presence of once-off events in the time period
Rf: Use the yield of a 10-years Australian government bond for the risk-
free rate.
Rm: Calculate market return using cumulative price return of ASX All
Ordinary index (the period should match exactly with your reporting period).
If it is less than 5%, you have to use an adjusted Rm. Perform the following
steps in sequence and show your findings for each step:
Include a table to show clearly the time frames of the variables used to
calculate CAPM.
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Variabl Rate Sourced at
Period of (date to date)
e (%) (date)
eg.14/07/2021 -
Rf eg. X% eg.14/07/2021
13/07/2031
eg.01/07/2019 -
Rm eg.14/07/2021
30/07/2020
eg.14/07/2019 -
Beta eg.14/07/2021
13/07/2021
D1
re= +g
P0
g= 1− ( D1
EPS )(
X
Net Income
'
Shareholde r sEquity )
D1 is the sum of the dividends for the reporting period (check payment date).
Don’t include any special dividends as it is a one-off occurrence.
Don’t include franking credits.
P0 is the beginning price of the share of the reporting period.
Include the page number of the annual report where you have obtained the
figures.
If your company has many divisions/operations, you have to use the figures of
the main group.
You may use the calculated basic EPS from the annual report, but check if they
have used adjusted figures and note in your report what they have adjusted for.
If your g is negative, you will have to take averages for the variables used in
the formula. The choice of which variable to apply an average will depend on
the company’s history. E.g. check company’s Dividend policy:
i. If company follows a constant dividend policy, take the average of 2-5
years the EPS, as needed to make g positive.
ii. If company DO NOT follow a constant dividend policy (varies from
year to year or once off extra dividend), take the average of 2-5 years
of the dividend, as needed to make g positive.
Make a note in your report that as the dividend payments are a few months
apart, the numbers may not fit the DGM formula well.
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3.2 Selection / justification of Re
Identify if there had been major events that occurred that may have caused a
huge fluctuation in volatility: this will affect ‘Re’ through CAPM.
Investigate if there had been a change in the dividend payout policy: this will
affect ‘Re’ through DGM.
Investigate and discuss the appropriateness of the growth rate (g) assumed in
the DGM calculations.
CAPM or DGM? Choose the method you feel is more accurate/appropriate and
justify your choice. (refer to section 1 of this assignment)
3.3 Calculation of Rd
Identify all long-term borrowings used for CAPEX purposes. These are usually
loans, bonds, notes or leases.
You will need to use the publicly available information as an estimation for the
rate and add appropriate margin. This added margin is to account for the terms
or risks included in the loan contract.
To decide on the suitable margin, you need to identify investigate the maturity,
security and variability of the loan instrument.
Security – investigate if the borrowings are secured or not. The stronger the
security, the lower the margin.
Rate - you cannot use the interest repayments to ‘reverse’ engineer the rate.
You are to follow the steps below to calculate your weighted average cost of
debt:
a) Establish your base rate - Investigate the current bank bill swap rate
(BBSW) + credit rating (follow lecture 4 recording)
b) Apply a suitable margin to each loan instrument:
Rank all your loan instruments in order of risk
Apply a margin for each loan instrument
Research publicly available loan rates to ensure that your margins are
reasonable.
Review the annual report to verify if there are any mandates or restrictions to
the amount to debt. A significantly high level of company debt would attract a
higher margin.
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You still have to go through the above steps and include a margin on each loan
instrument even if a rate is provided in the annual report. However, you can
use that rate to justify your margin applied.
Use market values. However, where market values for debt is not available,
you may use the book value.
How does the calculated cost of capital confirm your observation of the
market’s reaction to the capital projects when announced by the company?
What is your assessment of the cost of capital on the company’s current capital
projects identified in section 2.3?
4. Financial statement analysis guide
4. Calculations
Ensure that you show all calculations and footnote the page number of the
annual report where you obtained the figures from.
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Source and report last 3 years of Morningstar calculated ratios and discuss. Do
not provide definitions for the ratios. Go straight into the discussion.
4. Cross-sectional analysis
If you find a company that matches with your company across all the above 4
category, then use just that company to conduct a cross section analysis.
Alternatively, to conduct a robust cross-sectional analysis, you will need
to identify 2-3 other companies that can be considered as peer by
matching at least any 2 of the categories at a time. e.g. same age & sector,
or same size & age etc.
Do not merely state that the company is performing better or worse than its
competitors.
These specific events, actions or decisions are the headings of this section.
All work above 20% similarity index will be referred to the student disciplinary panel for
investigation. The investigation may take up to two month to finalise. If it is not finalised prior to the
release of the results, you will receive a F-IN grade. If your work is submitted to the student
disciplinary panel, you will be notified directly by the student advisers via your official Curtin Oasis
account. You will be given an opportunity to provide an explanation to the disciplinary panel. Your
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unit coordinator will not be involved in the process and will not be able to provide you with any
assistance in this matter. Interfering with the process will delay the outcome of the investigation.
Please refer to Curtin’s plagiarism guide and utilize the checklist provided below:
http://academicintegrity.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/StudentPlagiarismGuide.pdf
http://academicintegrity.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/StudentChecklist.pdf
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9. Marking rubrics
Below expectations (0 – 49%) Meets expectations (50 – 69%) Exceeds expectations (70 – 100%)
Shareholders Summary of the business – (weighted 20%) Summary of the business – (weighted 20%) Summary of the business – (weighted 20%)
analysis 15%Reproduced substantial sections of annual report, websites and Somewhat described sections of annual report, Went beyond a simple description of sections of annual report:
commercial reports. - Interpreted the data collected - Thorough investigation of the business, subsidiaries and
- Largely paraphrased other resources - Elaborated on information from the sources distribution channels
- Did not elaborate on information from the sources - Analysis of the annual report - Clear knowledge and presentation of all revenue sources
- No discussion of the annual report - Information collected is summarised succinctly in tables and
Chairperson message – (weighted 20%) diagrams
Chairperson message – (weighted 20%)
- No or very limited discussion of chairperson’s message - Not very clear summary of the message Chairperson message – (weighted 20%)
- Did not provide reasons to justify assumption of target audience - Did not provide reasons to justify assumption of target audience - Clear summary of the message
- Provided detailed reasons to justify assumption of target
Profile of the investor of the company - (weighted 40%) Profile of the investor of the company - (weighted 40%) audience
not state whether investors are; income vs capital growth, long
vs short term, informed vs uninformed. - Provided justification for the profile of investor.
- Just stated the profile without justification. - Provided a discussion about the differences in investors.
- Did not provide a discussion about the differences in - Provided a comparison to other companies in the sector.
Profile of the investor of the company - (weighted 40%)
investors Comparison needs to discuss the previous findings (income Vs
- Did not compare to other companies in the sector. capital growth, long vs short term and informed vs uninformed) - Provided clear and strong assessment of the profile of the invest
Comparison needs to discuss the previous findings - Provided some graphs and charts or of your company.
(income Vs capital growth, long vs short term and - Provided a strong discussion about the assumptions of your
informed vs uninformed) Identify Non Marginal Investors – investors' needs (income Vs capital growth, long vs
(weighted 20%) short term and informed vs uninformed)
Identify Non-Marginal Investors – (weighted 20%) - Correctly identified non marginal investors - Provided a comparison to other companies (at least 3) to justify
- Did not correctly identify non marginal investors - Provided justification of the choice of non-marginal your assessment
- Did not provide justification of the choice of non- investors - Graphs and charts are clearly labelled with detailed explanations
marginal investors - Presented a table summarising the percentages of marginal and
non-marginal investors for both on and outside the top 20 list. Identify Non-Marginal Investors –
(weighted 20%)
- Correctly identified non marginal investors
- Provided evidence of research on the top 20
shareholders list
- Presented evidence for the justification of the choice
of non-marginal investors
- Presented a table summarising the percentages of marginal and
non-marginal investors for both on and outside the top 20 list.
- Clear assumptions and strong discussion on the investors
outside the top 20
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Risk-return Review and Evidence of listed risks– (weighted 40%) Review and Evidence of listed risks– (weighted 40%) Review and Evidence of listed risks– (weighted 40%)
analysis 15% - Just identified risk and made some discussion - Showed evidence of the potential impact of the external risk - Showed evidence of the potential impact of the
- Did not show evidence of the potential impact of on the company external risk on the company
the external risk on the company - Did not provided clear reasoning and evidence that your - Provided clear reasoning and evidence that your
- Did not provided clear reasoning and evidence company is more susceptible to the risks than competitors company is more susceptible to the risks than
that your company is more susceptible to the risks - Did not showed the past impact of this external risk on the competitors
than competitors company - Showed the past impact of this external risk on
- Did not showed the past impact of this external - Appropriate use of graphs and charts the company
risk on the company - Appropriate use of graphs and charts
- No graphs and charts
Review of shareholder vs market returns – (weighted 30%)
- Correctly calculated return of the All-Ordinaries Index Review of shareholder vs market returns – (weighted 30%)
Review of shareholder vs market returns – (weighted 30%) - Did not provide all dividends paid in the time frame - Correctly calculated return of the All-Ordinaries
- Did not calculate return of the All-Ordinaries including special and one-off dividends. Index
Index - Did not identified franked dividends or dividends with - Provided all dividends paid in the time frame
- Did not provide all dividends paid in the time franking not calculated. including special and one-off dividends.
frame including special and one-off dividends. - Correctly calculated total shareholder return - Correctly identified franked dividends or correctly
- Did not identified franked dividends or dividends calculate dividends with franking.
with franking not calculated. - Correctly calculated total shareholder return
- Total shareholder return is wrong Review of capital projects – (weighted 30%)
- Partially identified some of the company’s major capital Review of capital projects – (weighted 30%)
projects and provided brief discussion on the description, - Identified all the company’s major capital projects
Review of capital projects – (weighted 30%) amount and duration of the project. and provided an in-depth discussion on the
- Did not identify any of the company’s major - Did not identify projects that are underway in the current description, amount and duration of the project.
capital projects period that been rollover in previous years. - Identify projects that are underway in the current
- Did not identify projects that are underway in the - Provided brief concluding discussion with some linkage to period that been rollover in previous years.
current period that been rollover in previous the risk return trade-off. - Presented a concluding discussion with a strong
years. - Included page number of annual report where the linkage to the risk return trade-off, examining past
- Provided brief concluding discussion with some information was obtained from and current projects
linkage to the risk return trade-off. - Very few diagrams and tables - Included page number of annual report where the
- Included some page number of annual report - Contained some irrelevant material information was obtained from
where the information was obtained from - Appropriate use of diagrams and tables
- No diagrams and tables - Contained no irrelevant material
- Plenty of irrelevant material
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Cost of CAPM calculations – (weighted 25%) CAPM calculations – (weighted 25%) CAPM and DGM calculations – (weighted 25%)
capital 40% - Calculated CAPM wrongly - Calculated CAPM partially correct - Calculated CAPM correctly
- Did not adjust Rm if it was needed - Did not show steps taken to derive at adjusted Rm - Showed steps taken to derive at adjusted Rm if
- Table not provided if used used
- DGM calculation was wrong - Information is summarised in a table format but - Information is correctly summarised in a table
- Used negative g not entirely correct format
- Assumption used in calculations are not provided - DGM calculation was partially correct - DGM calculation was correct
- Did not show steps taken to address negative g if - Showed steps taken to address negative g if
present present
- Assumption used in calculations are not provided - Provide clear assumptions used in calculations
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FSA 30% Calculations– (weighted 30%) Calculations – (weighted 30%) Calculations – (weighted 30%)
- Identified variables and calculated less than 4 - Identified variables and calculated 4-5 ratios - Identified variables and calculated 6 ratios correctly
ratios correctly. correctly. - Provided page numbers or footnotes on where the
- Did not provide page numbers or footnotes on - Provided some page numbers or footnotes on figures originated from
where the figures originated from where the figures originated from - Conducted a Du Pont analysis and provided a robust
- Conducted a Du Pont analysis and provided a - Conducted a Du Pont analysis and provided a discussion on the company’s ROA and ROE
robust discussion on the company’s ROA and robust discussion on the company’s ROA and - Presented the comparison with Morningstar and
ROE ROE provided reason of variation (when appropriate)
- Presented the comparison with Morningstar and - Presented the comparison with Morningstar and - Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and
provided reason of variation (when appropriate) provided reason of variation (when appropriate) research
- Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and - Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and
research research Time series analysis – (weighed 35%)
- 3 specific events, actions or decisions of company
Time series analysis – (weighed 35%) Time series analysis – (weighed 35%) identified and thoroughly discussed
- No specific events, actions or decisions of company identified - 1-2 specific events, actions or decisions of company identified - Provided a thorough analysis and discussion on
and discussed and thoroughly discussed challenges or areas that the company should focus
- Provided some discussion on challenges or areas that the - Provided a thorough analysis and discussion on challenges or on
company should focus on areas that the company should focus on - Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and
- No evidence of critical thinking and research - Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and research research
Cross-sectional analysis – (weighted 35%) Cross-sectional analysis – (weighted 35%) Cross-sectional analysis – (weighted 35%)
- Identified only 1-2 peer with no discussion on selection. - Identified 1-2 peers and did not provide - Identified 2-3 peers correctly and provided a short
- Only reported but did not compare ratios of peer. discussion justifying your selection of companies discussion justifying your selection of companies
- Did not identify any events, actions or decisions as peer / comparable / competitor. as peer / comparable / competitor.
of peers that can be used as logical explanation of - Reported and compared 2-3 ratios of peer. - Reported and compared 2-3 ratios of peer.
the variation in performance. - Identified and discussed only 1 specific event, - Identified and discussed 2 - 3 specific events, actions
- Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and actions or decisions of peers that can be used as or decisions of peers that can be used as logical
research logical explanation of the variation in explanation of the variation in performance.
performance. - Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and
- Showed clear evidence of critical thinking and research
research
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