Advanced Financial Management

This assignment requires you to prepare a report on performance analysis of financial statements.-To find the financial statements of a publicly listed non-financial company, students can use the below

link.

Muscat Stock Exchange (msx.om). Please find the attach below.

Module Code
Module Title
Module Credits
GAA6004
Advanced Financial Management
20
Academic Year and
Semester
Examination Board
Level & Block
2023-24, 2nd Semester
July 2024
6&1
Method of Assessment
Term
Weighting
COURSEWORK
Mid-term
70%
Module Leader
Module Leader email
Dr. Juliet Sophia
jltsophia@gulfcollege.edu.om
Additional Information (if any)
No photo no PDF is allowed for Turnitin submission, use only MS WORD file format.
th
Submission due date: 27 April 2023 @ 9:00PM
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Contents
1. Assessment Details
2. Submission Details
3. Assessment Criteria
4. Further Information
 Who can answer questions about my assessment?
 Referencing
 Submission problems
 Unfair academic practice
 How is my work graded?
5. IV form
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Assessment Details
Assessment title
Abr.
Weighting
Coursework
WRIT1
30%
Pass marks for undergraduate work is 40%, unless stated otherwise.
Task/assessment brief:
This assignment requires you to prepare a 1200 – word report on performance analysis of financial statements
and as structured below.
The non-financial public companies include government-owned companies and legal bodies that operate mainly
across Oman. Perform a ratio analysis of a publicly listed non-financial company from the consumer products,
energy resources, mining, automotive and media & telecommunications industries using their latest one-year
financial statements.
a. Briefly discuss the history of a company, including its strengths and weakness.
(10 marks; 200 words)
b. Compare and contrast the income statement and the balance sheet of the company through common
size analysis for the year.
(30 marks; 300 words)
c. Calculate the company key financial ratios for the evaluation of company’s profitability, gearing and
investment position for the year.
(40 marks; 400 words)
d. Critically appraise the financial performance and financial position of the company in all areas.
(20 marks; 300 words)
References
Use at least 6 sources, preferably refereed accounting journals and books or e-books.
***END OF ASSIGNMENT TASK***
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Additional instructions:
 Students are expected to provide a publicly listed non-financial company from the consumer products,
energy resources, mining, automotive and media & telecommunications industries with financial
statements for one-year to calculate the ratios.
 To find the financial statements of a publicly listed non-financial company, students can use the below
link.
Muscat Stock Exchange (msx.om)
 Students need to answer the tasks and make a report based on the company’s performance analysis.
 To analyse the performance of the company, students need to provide appropriate formulas, relevant
calculations and interpretations for the profitability, gearing and investment ratios.
 Provide a minimum of six (6) references and use the proper Harvard referencing style adopted by Gulf
College.
 Use Times New Roman or Arial as font style with 12 as font size.
 Use correct capitalisation.
 Complete your report in the acceptable format of the Microsoft Word file and submit it to Turnitin.
*************
Word count (or equivalent):
This is a reflection of the effort required for the assessment. Word counts will normally include any text,
tables, calculations, figures, subtitles and citations. Reference lists and contents of appendices are
excluded from the word count. Contents of appendices are not usually considered when determining
your final assessment grade.
Academic or technical terms explained:





Common size analysis – analysis of a company’s single-year financial statements. Financial statements are
standardized by a measure of size, either sales or total assets. All amounts are stated in terms of a percentage
of the size measure.
Financial ratios – analysis of a company’s financial statements by computing ratios and comparing them
against both trends and industry averages.
Profitability ratio – It assesses a company’s ability to earn profit from its sales, assets and shareholder’s funds.
Gearing ratio – It is to measure the relative proportion of equity to debt or funds borrowed by the company
in financing the assets of the firm.
Investment position – It measures the relationship between an amount of money invested and the profit
made from it.
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Submission Details
Submission
Deadline:
Mid – 25 April 2024
th
Estimated
Feedback
Return Date
After the result
announcement (10 working
days) – July 2024 EB
Submission
Time:
9:00 PM
Turnitin:
Any assessments submitted after the deadline will not be marked and will be
recorded as a non-attempt unless you have had an extension request agreed or
have approved mitigating circumstances. See the Gulf College website for more
information on submission details and mitigating circumstances.
File Format:
The assessment must be submitted as a word document and submit through the
Turnitin submission point.
Your assessment should be titled with your:
Student ID number, Module code and Assessment ID,
e.g. 1610200 GAA6004 WRIT1
Feedback
Feedback for the assessment will be provided electronically via Turnitin / MS Teams
/ Face to Face. Feedback will be provided with comments on your strengths and the
areas which you can improve. Module tutors give students two types of assessment
feedback: formative, which is given when the student is working on the completion
of an assignment or coursework, and summative, which is given upon completion
of the module. A comprehensive assessment feedback on your performance will be
given after the announcement of the results. (10 Working Days)
Assessment Criteria
Learning outcomes assessed
On successful completion of the module, a student should be able to:
 Apply relevant knowledge and skills in making decisions relating to investment, financing, capital
structure & dividend policies
 Estimate costs of various sources of medium- & long-term finance & a company’s WACC
 Calculate and interpret investment ratios & other performance measures to facilitate the valuation of
shares/businesses in the context of mergers and takeovers
 Apply corporate risk management techniques, including the management of exchange rate risk.
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In addition, the assessment will test the following learning outcome:



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Apply relevant knowledge and skills in making decisions relating to investment, financing, capital
structure & dividend policies.
Estimate costs of various sources of medium- & long-term finance.
Calculate and interpret investment ratios & other performance measures to facilitate the valuation of
shares.
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Marking/Assessment Criteria
Task
No.
Marks
Description
Allocated
a
Brief history of a company including its strengths and weakness
(200 words)
10%
b
Comparison of the Income statement and the Balance sheet through common Size
analysis for the year
(300 words)
30%
c
Calculation of key financial ratios for the evaluation of company’s profitability, gearing
and investment position for the year
(400 words)
40%
d
Critical appraisal of the financial performance and position of the company in all areas
20%
(300 words)
Total
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100%
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Further Information
Who can answer questions about my assessment?
Questions about the assessment should be directed to the staff member who has set the task/assessment
brief. This will usually be the Module tutor. They will be happy to answer any queries you have.
Referencing and independent learning (Not applicable for Examination)
Please ensure you reference a range of credible sources, with due attention to the academic literature in the
area. The time spent on research and reading from good quality sources will be reflected in the quality of
your submitted work.
Remember that what you get out of university depends on what you put in. Your teaching sessions typically
represent between 10% and 30% of the time you are expected to study for your degree. A 20-credit module
represents 200 hours of study time. The rest of your time should be taken up by self-directed study.
Unless stated otherwise you must use the HARVARD referencing system. Further guidance on referencing
can be found in the on Moodle. Correct referencing is an easy way to improve your marks and essential in
achieving higher grades on most assessments.
Technical submission problems (Not applicable for Examination)
It is strongly advised that you submit your work at least 24 hours before the deadline to allow time to resolve
any last minute problems you might have. If you are having issues with IT or Turnitin you should contact the
IT Helpdesk on (+968) 92841521/ 92841217. You may require evidence of the Helpdesk call if you are trying
to demonstrate that a fault with Turnitin was the cause of a late submission.
Mitigating circumstances
Short extensions on assessment deadlines can be requested in specific circumstances. If you are
encountering particular hardship which has been affecting your studies, then you may be able to apply for
mitigating circumstances. This can give the teachers on your programme more scope to adapt the
assessment requirements to support your needs. Mitigating circumstances policies and procedures are
regularly updated. You should refer to your Academic Advisor for information on extensions and mitigating
circumstances.
Unfair academic practice
Cardiff Met takes issues of unfair practice extremely seriously. The University has procedures and penalties
for dealing with unfair academic practice. These are explained in full in the University’s Unfair Practice
regulations and procedures under Volume 1, Section 8 of the Academic Handbook. The Module Leader
reserves the right to interview students regarding any aspect of their work submitted for assessment.
Types of Unfair Practice, include:
Plagiarism, which can be defined as using without acknowledgement another person’s words or ideas and
submitting them for assessment as though it were one’s own work, for instance by copying, translating from
one language to another or unacknowledged paraphrasing. Further examples include:
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 Use of any quotation(s) from the published or unpublished work of other persons, whether published in
textbooks, articles, the Web, or in any other format, where quotations have not been clearly identified as
such by being placed in quotation marks and acknowledged.
 Use of another person’s words or ideas that have been slightly changed or paraphrased to make it look
different from the original.
 Summarising another person’s ideas, judgments, diagrams, figures, or computer programmes without
reference to that person in the text and the source in a bibliography/reference list.
 Use of assessment writing services, essay banks and/or any other similar agencies (NB. Students are
commonly being blackmailed after using essay mills).
 Use of unacknowledged material downloaded from the Internet.
 Re-use of one’s own material except as authorised by your degree programme.
Collusion, which can be defined as when work that that has been undertaken with others is submitted and
passed off as solely the work of one person. Modules will clearly identify where joint preparation and joint
submission are permitted, in all other cases they are not.
Fabrication of data, making false claims to have carried out experiments, observations, interviews or other
forms of data collection and analysis, or acting dishonestly in any other way.
How is my work graded?
Gulf College uses Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Generic Band Descriptors (GBD), in conjunction with
programme-specific and/or assessment-specific descriptors that are developed in accordance with the
principles underpinning the generic descriptors, as a reference in marking student work outputs. This is to
ensure that marking is consistent across all Cardiff Met students’ work, including the work outputs of students
in Gulf College.
Assessment marking undergoes a meticulous process to make sure that it is fair and truly reflects the
performance of students in their modules. Marking of work at each level of Cardiff Met degree programmes
are benchmarked against a set of general requirements set out in Cardiff Met’s Guidance on Assessment
Marking. https://www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/registry/academichandbook/Documents/AH1_04_03.pdf
To find out more about assessments and key academic skills that can have a significant impact on your
marks, download and read your Module Handbook from Moodle and your Programme Handbook from the
college website.
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