The financial statements of The North West Company Inc. and Sobeys Inc. are presented in Appendix A and B in your Financial Accounting Tools for Business Decision$-$Making, $8$th Canadian Edition textbook. You may need to look up some of the terms in both your textbooks if they are not familiar to you.

Use the financial statements of The North West Company Inc. to answer the following questions:

Is this company a service company, merchandising company or manufacturing company? Explain why?

In what order does the company list its current and non$-$current assets? Explain.

In what order does the company list its current and non$-$current liabilities? Explain.

Are any non$-$operating revenues or expenses included on this company$$s income statement? If so$,$ identify accounts included.

What comments, if any, about the company$$s system of internal control are included in management$$s report? In the independent auditors$$ report?

Who is primarily responsible for the system of internal controls $-$ management or the auditors? Explain the responsibility of each with regard to internal control.

Who is primarily responsible for the preparation of the financial statements? In which report$($s$)$ are these responsibilities identified?

Using the financial statements of both The North West Company Inc. and Sobeys Inc., answer the following questions for both companies:

Determine the following $2018$ and $2019$ values for each company as follows:

Working capital

Current ratio

Debt to total assets

$2.$ Assume that the industry average for the current ratio is $1\mathrm{.}8$ and debt to total assets is $41\mathrm{.}1\%.$ Discuss the relative liquidity and solvency of the two companies and their industry.

$3.$ What was the amount of net operating cash flows reported by each company for the years ending in $2019$ and $2018?$

$4.$ Discuss whether or not each company managed its noncash working capital better or worse in the most recent year compared with the prior year.

$5.$ Take a further look into the statements of cash flows of the two companies. What was the most significant investing activity for each company? Financing activity?

$6.$ What conclusions can you make from your analysis in the above parts.