Reference no: EM132882821

AFIN3053 Advanced Corporate Finance - Macquarie University

PART 1: Two S&P Market Intelligence Skill Badge Series training modules

The first task of the assignment is to get familiar with the S&P Capital IQ (Cap IQ) and S&P Market Intelligence Platform (MI). You all have your logins and as instructed you would have seen a few introductory videos by now including the presentation by Deen Rad. Please download the Cap IQ MS Excel plug-in after clicking on "Downloads" under the My Capital IQ tab. For the MI MS Excel plug-in sign into it first by clicking on the tab next to the Logout button in Cap IQ. Once you are in go to Tools and click on the "Market Intelligence Office Download". You will need to shut down all MS Office products so please make sure you save your files before shutting them down.

You need to complete 2 out of 4 "Market Intelligence Skill Badge Series" from this link for the assignment. Feel free to do more for your own benefit. These virtual sessions are interactive and hone your skills in real-time with the MI platform. You will receive a badge upon completion of each session. Please save these badges on two separate pages but in a single file to your computer as you will need to upload this to ilearn. Please save the file in PDF and name the file in the following format (using underscore). Student ID_Surname_S1 2021_MI Skill badges_AFIN3053.pdf

Prior to attempting the modules, please complete the following items.

Make sure you have access to the Market Intelligence platform. Check your login credentials here.

If possible, set up a second computer monitor. While not necessary, it will make following along and answering the test questions easier.

For session I - Download MI Office here. If you have questions about the installation, please visit our FAQs page.

For session II - Download the Market Intelligence App for iPhone and iPad or Android here.
Complete Two series from the following

Session 1: Custom Analysis Session 2: Market Monitoring Session 3: Data Visualization
Session 4: Company & Country Analysis

Please follow the rest of the instructions as stated on this link

PART II: Industry and Company background.

Maximum 4 pages. Discussion should be approximately shared equally across each company.

You are required to conduct research and analysis on Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX:WOW) and Coles Group Ltd (ASX:COL).

You can directly type the company names in the search field of Capital IQ and MI as a start or you can use the "Screener" and "Companies" tool.

As guide, in the opening paragraph introduce the industry type both companies operate in based on the Cap IQ industry classification. Then state the size (market capitalisation) of the companies and give some background on the companies and the industry. For example, report any interesting findings or changes for the last 3 years. Please note the Covid-19 impact might not be reflected as most information will be reported to June 2020, so this should be your end of your three-year period. However, you may include discussion in the press, analyst reports and other industry specific publications that might comment on how the industry/company has performed since June 2020 (if you are referring to some recent quarterly statements). Please keep your report focused on some of the material covered in the first 5 weeks of your course. For example, you might comment on the companies Beta, Capital Structure, WACC, Revenue, Capital Expenditure, Operating Expenditure, Net Working Capital, Dividend policy etc.

Under the current pandemic, most companies' financial performance has been worse than expected. Comment specifically on how the most recent dividend payment was affected for Woolworths and Coles, with reference to analyst reports and comment if the reports state if there are likely to be any short-term or long-term impacts. What do you think would happen to the future dividends and payout policies?

Please include a reference page at the end and note down any links and other references. You should include some tables and charts as part of the 4-page summary. You can also refer to other sources like Factset and MorningStar Premium. Clearly identify the source of your data in tables and figures and provide in text reference when referring to any published reports. You may write the report in a single space format using any font type (ensure it is readable) but in size 12. Feel free to include any striking charts as part of your report. If may write it in column or standard style. It is up to you, as long as you are consistent, present it in a coherent way and its looks professional. You are not required to have an executive summary.

You are expected to use tables and/or diagrams to summarise or emphasise findings but the information in a table/diagram must be referred to and clearly explained in-text. Simply do not simply copy and paste existing tables. Be creative and come with your own tables based on information from the MI source.

Additional instructions/comments:

If you have questions about the assignment, ask them in the "assignment discussion forum", to make sure that the answer to the question is available to all. Teaching staff will not answer any private question sent via email or message on ilearn to make it fair to everyone. Try to join in the discussions on forum.

PART III: Construct a Dashboard for both companies
When constructing the Dashboard do consider the following:

With each Widget you can include tabs. If you have issues or need help on this, please contact the helpdesk as you normally would when working in the industry. Clearly identify yourself as a student of Macquarie University.

Some things to consider for the widget include key market developments, news, fund raising, equity beta (1yr, 3yr, 5yr is not available). You could include a historical price volume chart for each company as separate tabs. Another possible widget could include tabs on Financials, Profitability & Turnover Ratio, Liquidity & Solvency and Growth. As mentioned above you may also include so key inputs required in calculating Free Cash Flows to the Firm.

Please note that Analyst Coverage information is not available. Hence you can add a widget for Estimates data on Analyst Recommendation.

A performance widget based on ASX list for performance chart. (You will have only two companies in your list but can add more companies)

A Transaction overview widget can also be added to the ASX list that will give all Announced/Completed transactions done by companies on the List.

A newswire widget can be added for Key Developments, Filings and Transactions based on the ASX List. Each of this info can be in placed next to each other in separate tabs.

The widget can also include a tab that captures Shareholder/Analyst call that is coming from key developments, Filings and Transcripts.

A Widget called "AUS Food Retails Key Devs - 1 month" can be added for past 30 days Key developments on Australian Food Retail & Supermarket sector.

"NEWS", a newswire widget can be added for 7 days news from Market Intelligence News.

This is just a guide.

At present the best way to include the Dashboard in your report is if you hit CTRL P (Print) and select print to PDF. In addition to this, please use your "Snipping Tool" to

capture the Dashboard and include this as a first page to this section followed by the "Print to PDF" section of the dashboard.

Part IV: Provide a 1-page summary as to why you included certain widgets on the Dashboard and note which ones would be considered important when making investment and corporate finance decisions.

Attachment:- Advanced Corporate Finance.rar