ACT 670 – FSA and Valuation

Objectives
To provide the UMass Dartmouth Graduate students an opportunity to:
Develop an understanding of a chosen entities business environment
Extract and examine financial statement information to understand an entity’s current performance
Define both profitability and credit risk analysis, utilizing tools for adjusting and assessing an entities financial statement information, in order to improve analysis, and better reflect actual business performance.
Apply acquired knowledge of an entities business environment and current status to predict future financial performance (Forecasting)
Provide and educated business valuation for investing purposes
Overview
In this project, you as an individual, or your team, will learn about extracting financial statement information utilizing different analytical tools to scrutinize and compare two companies, within the same industry, their performances, and ultimately value their equity and debt.
Your first task is to decide if you will be working individually, or in a small group. Next, select two publicly traded companies that compete with one another, and download their most recent annual reports. Save them because you will be referring to these reports all semester.
There are three parts in this project.
Project Proposal: This part is about developing the project proposal. You will gather basic information about your chosen companies and develop a general understanding of their business process and industry. You will then document, on one page only, a quick summary of the various challenges you consider competitors face in this industry. Please remember to include all team member’s names if working in a group.
Ongoing Semester Project: Documentation and Analysis: This part is about completing the goal of each week’s Module throughout the semester. The Project requirements are located at the end of each Module (Chapter), under Ongoing Project Analysis. Maintain all work in a folder to be handed in at semester’s end. It is important to keep this information organized because you will need to refer back to it in order to produce your Final Report.
Final Report: This final part is about bringing all the pieces together. Based on the information and analysis you performed, while also considering your chosen companies’ accounting policies, support your opinion as to whether you would recommend to a client investing in both companies, neither, or one over the other. Be sure to include all team members’ names on the report. The Final report is due no later than April 25, 2023.
Note: The overall tone and language must be professional and client oriented. You are addressing the client and not the professor.
Grading and Participation
You will be graded both on content and form in each of the deliverables. Please strive to be as clear and concise as possible. You will be assessed whether you have a) included every item assigned, b) provided an introduction and conclusion to every deliverable, c) organized your thoughts so as to emphasize key points, and d) made appropriate use of relevant evidence (such as 10k data).
Collaborative learning is emphasized in this project, but not a requirement. Your individual efforts and skills should complement other members of your team. You are encouraged to seek my assistance on any questions you may encounter throughout the project. (Although I cannot pre-grade items, I will be happy to review drafts and answer specific questions that you raise about them, if you demonstrate that you have attempted its resolution prior to seeking my input.)
Formatting and Submission
Professional presentation is expected. Please follow this formatting style for all deliverables:
Page Layout: 1-inch margin all around
Body Font: Times New Roman/Calibri, 12-point.
Page Numbers: Bottom right
Include cover page that includes your class number, team name, team members, and name of chosen companies.
Include all exhibits within the Word document i.e., copy-paste all exhibits to word.
Label all exhibits clearly (e.g., Figure 1.1 Organization chart). Please use excel where appropriate in your exhibits vs. typing numbers into a word document.
Cite any outside references.

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