You are to pick a company. You should pick one either from the industry in which you are currently working or an industry in which you are interested. You could also pick a division of a company. It is imperative to use that sufficient data about your company and that it is available. One way to do this is to pick a publicly held company. If you pick a privately held company or a division of a company, make sure that the data necessary to do a significant financial analysis is available.

First Course Project The purpose of this project is to help you develop skills not only in performing the calculations behind financial analysis but interpreting the numbers as well. You are to pick a company. You should pick one either from the industry in which you are currently working or an industry in which you are interested. You could also pick a division of a company. It is imperative to use that sufficient data about your company and that it is available. One way to do this is to pick a publicly held company. If you pick a privately held company or a division of a company, make sure that the data necessary to do a significant financial analysis is available. If you use data that is not publicly available, be sure to talk to your manager and to make absolutely sure that revealing that data is not a problem. You will also need to find a standard against which to compare your findings. This could be a different company in the same industry. This could also be the same company at a different time. Additionally, average or benchmark numbers are available for several industries. If you decide to use a different company in the same industry or the same company at a different time, make sure that there are enough differences between the two to make an analysis meaningful. After you have selected a company, put yourself in the place of an analyst who has been asked to perform an analysis of the company and provide a recommendation to management. Use ratio analysis, common size analysis, or other techniques to determine areas in which the company is doing well as well as areas that management should look at. Then, present your analysis and recommendations in the form of a paper. A good place to start would be to perform a complete DuPont analysis of the company and compare it to the standard. The DuPont analysis might provide guidance as to what particular areas of the company should be examined next and what ratios should be calculated. If the DuPont analysis does not reveal anything useful, you might wish to calculate several of the ratios that are available to you. Deliverable The completed paper should be about 1,000 words long. In the paper, you do not have to explain the ratios in depth. You may assume that the reader has a basic understanding of finance and knows what ratio analysis is, although he or she might not be able to list all the ratios and how to calculate them from memory. The reader is not going to want a lot of background about financial analysis. He or she really wants information that he or she can apply to the given situation, which is the company that you have selected. If you like, you can write the paper in the form of a memo to management. You do not have to cite your source for how to calculate the ratios. You do need to provide a reference to where you got that data not only for your subject company but for the other company or standard to which you compared your company. The spirit of this assignment is for you to calculate and interpret the results. The purpose is not for you to find calculations and interpretations that have been done by someone else. The paper is expected to conform to the standards for graduate school writing. The purpose of your analysis is internal evaluation. Refrain from using stock market valuation ratios. When you have completed the project, place it in one Word document and place that document in the appropriate dropbox. Second Project The purpose of this project is for you to have some practice working with financial concepts in the real world. This will involve integrating some material from throughout the course. The project will also involve the development of your own approach to doing the work. The project does not provide a stepby-step procedure for you to follow. Your task is to determine the WACC for a given firm using what you know about WACC as well as data you can find through research. Your deliverable is to be a brief report in which you state your determination of WACC, describe and justify how you determined the number, and provide relevant information as to the sources of your data. With the help of your professor, you have selected a company for which to research and find the WACC. Your research is to be independent from any information you may find at thatswacc.com or similar sites although you might want to use such sites to provide a reasonableness check on the WACC you calculate. Assumptions As you recall, the formula for WACC is rWACC = (E/E+D) rE + D/(E+D) rD (1-TC) The formula for the required return on a given equity investment is ri= rf + i * (RMkt-rf) RMkt-rf is the Market Risk Premium. For this project, you may assume the Market Risk Premium is 4% unless you can develop a better number. rf is the risk free rate. The YTM on 10 year US Treasury securities is a good approximation. You may assume a corporate tax rate of 40%. One good source for financial data for companies as well as data about their equity is http://finance.yahoo.com. By looking around this site, you should be able to find the market capitalization (E) as well as the for any publicly traded company. There are not many places left where data about corporate bonds is still available. One of them is http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter. To find data for a particular company's bonds, find the Quick Search feature, then be sure to specify corporate bonds and type in the name of the issuing company. This should give you a list of all of the company's outstanding bond issues. Clicking on the symbol for a given bond issue will lead you to the current amount outstanding and the yield to maturity. You are interested in both. The total of all bonds outstanding is D in the above formula. If you like, you can use the YTM on a bond issue that is not callable as the pre-tax cost of debt for the company. Deliverable Write a two or three page report that contains the following elements: 1. Your calculated WACC. 2. How data was used to calculate WACC. This would be the formula and the formula with your values substituted. 3. Sources for your data. 4. A discussion of how much confidence you have in your answer. What were the limiting assumptions that you made, if any. Rubric - Second Project FIN-515 Data Possible Points 15 Earned Points 15 15 Comments: 15 Calculations Criteria and Point Range 0-3 Little or no data provided. Source of data not clear. 0-3 Calculations not provided or are generally incorrect. Comments: 10 10 Evaluation 0-2 Evaluation of answer or limitations and assumptions not discussed. Comments: 10 10 Form Total Comments: 50 4-7 Unclear relationship between data and variables. 4-7 Not all calculations provided or some calculations are incorrect. 3-4 8-11 Data mostly corresponds to variables. 8-11 12-15 Calculations are nearly but not Calculations are totally provided or provided and correct. are correct. 5-7 Evaluation of answer and Either evaluation of answer or discussion of discussion of limitations and limitations and assumptions assumptions missing or provided. Missing minimal. some limitations or assumptions. 0-2 3-4 Significant problems Minor problems with with writing or format. writing or format. 12-15 Relationships between data and variables clear and correct. 8-10 Complete and thorough discussion of confidence in answer based on limitations and discussions. 5-7 8-10 Writing and format Virtually no generally correct errors in writing with a few or format. exceptions. Second Project The purpose of this project is for you to have some practice working with financial concepts in the real world. This will involve integrating some material from throughout the course. The project will also involve the development of your own approach to doing the work. The project does not provide a stepby-step procedure for you to follow. Your task is to determine the WACC for a given firm using what you know about WACC as well as data you can find through research. Your deliverable is to be a brief report in which you state your determination of WACC, describe and justify how you determined the number, and provide relevant information as to the sources of your data. With the help of your professor, you have selected a company for which to research and find the WACC. Your research is to be independent from any information you may find at thatswacc.com or similar sites although you might want to use such sites to provide a reasonableness check on the WACC you calculate. Assumptions As you recall, the formula for WACC is rWACC = (E/E+D) rE + D/(E+D) rD (1-TC) The formula for the required return on a given equity investment is ri= rf + i * (RMkt-rf) RMkt-rf is the Market Risk Premium. For this project, you may assume the Market Risk Premium is 4% unless you can develop a better number. rf is the risk free rate. The YTM on 10 year US Treasury securities is a good approximation. You may assume a corporate tax rate of 40%. One good source for financial data for companies as well as data about their equity is http://finance.yahoo.com. By looking around this site, you should be able to find the market capitalization (E) as well as the for any publicly traded company. There are not many places left where data about corporate bonds is still available. One of them is http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter. To find data for a particular company's bonds, find the Quick Search feature, then be sure to specify corporate bonds and type in the name of the issuing company. This should give you a list of all of the company's outstanding bond issues. Clicking on the symbol for a given bond issue will lead you to the current amount outstanding and the yield to maturity. You are interested in both. The total of all bonds outstanding is D in the above formula. If you like, you can use the YTM on a bond issue that is not callable as the pre-tax cost of debt for the company. Deliverable Write a two or three page report that contains the following elements: 1. Your calculated WACC. 2. How data was used to calculate WACC. This would be the formula and the formula with your values substituted. 3. Sources for your data. 4. A discussion of how much confidence you have in your answer. What were the limiting assumptions that you made, if any. Rubric - Second Project FIN-515 Data Possible Points 15 Earned Points 15 15 Comments: 15 Calculations Criteria and Point Range 0-3 Little or no data provided. Source of data not clear. 0-3 Calculations not provided or are generally incorrect. Comments: 10 10 Evaluation 0-2 Evaluation of answer or limitations and assumptions not discussed. Comments: 10 10 Form Total Comments: 50 4-7 Unclear relationship between data and variables. 4-7 Not all calculations provided or some calculations are incorrect. 3-4 8-11 Data mostly corresponds to variables. 8-11 12-15 Calculations are nearly but not Calculations are totally provided or provided and correct. are correct. 5-7 Evaluation of answer and Either evaluation of answer or discussion of discussion of limitations and limitations and assumptions assumptions missing or provided. Missing minimal. some limitations or assumptions. 0-2 3-4 Significant problems Minor problems with with writing or format. writing or format. 12-15 Relationships between data and variables clear and correct. 8-10 Complete and thorough discussion of confidence in answer based on limitations and discussions. 5-7 8-10 Writing and format Virtually no generally correct errors in writing with a few or format. exceptions