Assignment:

You are the CFO of a major company. Your CEO keeps an eye on the competition, and asks you to do the following analyses:

Instructions:

Each team of 3 or 4 students will be randomly assigned a pair of US public firms in the same industry. These two firms are comparable in terms of size and other operating characteristics. You are allowed to switch between one of the two firms if you prefer to use another firm but doing so requires instructors permission in advance. Canvas System also randomly selects Group leader, who is responsible for the submission of final files to the Assignment folder.

1. Select at least 10 most important financial ratios for your two companies and calculate each for the last 2 fiscal years using Excel. Explain why you selected these ratios. (a sample project in Excel file will be posted to the classroom early in the semester for your reference.) Create a comparison chart for these ratios for 2 years for each company. Explain how you calculated each ratio. Explain what each ratio should mean to management. Using ratio analysis, compare two major competitors in the same industry.

All calculations should be shown, and all answers should be thoroughly explained.

It is useful to compare financial ratios for a company with financial ratios of its industry. Industry financial ratios can be found on Morningstar.com, Yahoo Finance and MSN Money.

There is an example posted in the file attached for your reference. The "Compare" worksheet shows comparison of ratios, however it does not include the required words about how the ratios were calculated, nor does it include what the numbers mean for management.

You will note that the W and C worksheets are used to calculate average balance sheet numbers. These are useful when there is large year to year changes on the balance sheet.

If you obtain data from the SEC web site "Interactive Data, then you can copy and paste into Excel. If you use data from other web sites, it may or may not allow excel to calculate ratios. The company website usually lists the Excel file of its annual report.

Create a single Excel file for your calculations and cut and paste relevant pages to your Word and/or PPT file. You need to submit this Excel File, together with the final report. Spend time to understand what you are trying to do and simplify your format, your calculations and approach. Think about which ratios are important and WHY?

You may obtain financial information and the companies' latest annual reports on the web directly from MSN Money or Yahoo Finance or Morningstar. However, it may be necessary to enter the numbers by hand into excel to allow Excel to calculate ratios. For additional information, look for the SEC Form10-K link from one of the MSN Money, Morningstar, or Yahoo Finance financial sites.

What can you tell from your analysis? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each company? Which is the stronger competitor? Give your reasons.

1. B) Describe any industry specific accounting problems and practices. Tabulate and compare the accounting methods chosen by your firms in their most recent financial statements. How do these choices affect the ability to make comparisons among firms? Compare the most important financial ratios for your set of firms. How is this comparison affected by your firms accounting choices? What do these ratios suggest about firm strategies within the industry? If you were making stock recommendations, would you recommend buy/hold/sell on any of these firms? Why, or why not?

You should support your analytical inferences with figures/computations, making valid or reasonable assumptions as necessary. Your analysis should explore (in depth) the risks, accounting and/or market returns, strengths, opportunities, uncertainties, threats, etc., that face the company.