FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS

GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Objective

The objective of this assignment is to use financial ratios for performance

evaluation and to identify strengths & weaknesses against a peer company.

Date of issue

28th September 2023

Group Member

The maximum number of members for a group is three (03). Number of

members cannot exceed three under any circumstances. Formation of the
group is the sole responsibility of students. Each student in the team is
expected to contribute equally to the assignment.

Date of Submission

28th October 2023

Assignments should be submitted to Academy of Finance within the

assignment submission period. The assignment will not be accepted after the
last date of acceptance under any circumstances. The answers and analysis
must be typed.

Assignment

1. Students can select a company of their choice. The assignment must be

based on annual reports/financial statements for the year not earlier than
31st December 2022 or 31st March 2023.

2. Information must be obtained through published financial statements and

/ discussions with the officers of the selected company such as CFO and
Managers.
 3. Strategy analysis and Accounting analysis should be carried out before
analyzing financial statements.

4. Following types of ratios can be used by students for performance

evaluation.

• Profitability Ratios
• Liquidity Ratios
• Solvency Ratios
• Efficiency Ratios
• Investor Ratios
• Other industry-specific ratios

5. Students must comment on the ratios in terms of the industry

performance and the economic climate in which the organization has been
operating.

6. Also, a comparison with previous period ratios and any possible reasons
for deterioration or improvements must also be examined.

7. As part of the analysis, the ratios can be drilled down further such as
drilling down the Return on Equity. You may use “DuPont” framework
for this to identify the strengths & weaknesses of the company.

8. It will be critical to give the formulae used to calculate each ratio instead
of writing the ratio straight as an answer. This will eliminate penalization
for arithmetic mistakes.

9. Marks allocation
Marks

Introduction to the company 4

Strategy analysis & accounting analysis 7
Calculation of ratios of the company and the selected 6
competitor/industry
Evaluation of performance against the previous year and 18
performance against the industry/the selected competitor.
Identify route causes for negative and positive variances
including strategies adopted and impact of macro-
economic factors.
Evaluation of sustainability of performance and conclusion 5
Total Marks 40
10. Word count 5,000 to 7,000 words