Finance assignment
- 1. PART B – ASSIGNMENT ASSIGNMENT OBJECTIVES This assignment seeks to assess your ability to: Evaluate the financial performance of a company through a critical analysis of its published financial statements; Prepare appropriate financial ratios for use in analysing financial statements and to critically evaluate the ratios, taking into account any inherent limitations; Locate, extract and analyse data and information from a variety of sources to provide a more comprehensive analysis of a company’s financial performance; Present a clear, well structured report using appropriate style and language; Reflect on the conduct and completion of this assignment. CASE SCENARIO You are a financial analyst who has been asked to analyse Marks and Spencer Group plc's Annual Report and Financial Statements 2006, and to produce a report thereon. The report will be distributed to potential investors and should comply with the requirements below. Marks and Spencer Group plc's Annual Report and Financial Statements 2006 can be downloaded from the company’s website: http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/documents/publications/2006/2006_annual_report.pdf REQUIRED Prepare a word-processed report containing the following: 1. An analysis of the information contained in Marks and Spencer Group plc's Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 1 April 2006, commenting on the financial performance and financial position disclosed therein. You should take into account any other relevant information which provides an appropriate basis for comparison. 2. Comments on information released through the financial press and the internet on the financial performance since 1 April 2006, linking this where appropriate with the comments in part (1) above. The weighting of the report between parts (1) and (2) is reflected in the allocation of marks against the marking criteria attached. Appropriate calculations or illustrations to support your comments should be included in an appendix to the report. A list of references should be attached to the end of the report. Length: 1000-1500 words. This word count does not include your cover page, an abstract, table of contents, list of references or appendices. Thus you can place any supporting material that exceeds this word limit into appendices. However, a reader should not have to look at an appendix to know about the main thrust of the points you are making in your assignment. So make sure all your main points are in the body of your report and explicitly refer in the body of your report to the appendices that will support the points you are making in the body of your report (and how they will support those points in the body of your report) because the reader may not look at the appendices otherwise (Relevant supporting material in these appendices that demonstrates thoughtful application of principles could help your mark).