This project is an individual project. It requires you to perform a financial analysis of a specific publicly listed company Walmart Inc. Please see the sector classification from S&P 500 Dow Jones PDF file. The project is designed to assist you in integrating many of the topics learned in this course, as well as to give you an opportunity to apply your knowledge in a practical way. The project requires you to utilize resources from the websites/Bloomberg to search out real-world data relating to your specific company. In addition, this exercise should provide training in writing business reports and working effectively.
Please use the data regarding the selected companys annual or quarterly reports from the selected companys website. You can also go to the companys website to get the recent quarter conference call video/audio. This will help you understand the companys business profile: sector, product and services, customer and end markets, distribution channels and geography etc.
Final Report Requirements:
1. Executive Summary a one-page summary of the analysis, forecasts and recommendations
2. Introduction and business description state the purpose of your report, identify and describe your chosen industries, and the publicly listed company to be analyzed; describe the business the company is involved with. Please discuss all business aspects of the company which might help understanding the company, including management and corporate governance if necessary
3. Industrial overview and competitive positioning – provide your economic & financial analysis on how the macro factors may affect performance of the industry and the company; provide your assessment of timelines and future prospects for your industries. Focus on major factors (Porters five factors) which will impact the expected revenues, costs and earnings for your industries.
4. Company analysis
a. Investment Summary – Please provide discussions on investments made by the company. Justify how these existing investments and potential investments will affect the companys expected revenue, costs, earnings and growth. How these investments will position the company in the futures competition.
b. Financial Analysis – Examine the firms balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements. How are the firms doing financially? Also conduct an historical, comparative ratio analysis, and Dupoint decomposition of your three companies. The ratio categories should include liquidity, asset management, debt management, profitability and market ratios. It can also include industry-specific ratios for analysis. The analysis should cover at least the past five years. Many of the ratios can be found on the Bloomberg or Morningstar.com
c. Valuation – Use the stock valuation models (Discounted Dividend Model, Discounted Cash Flow models, and relative valuation methods) to determine the firms estimated intrinsic value and make investment recommendation Indicate whether you recommend a buy, hold, or sell for your companies. In this part, you need to show me how to calculate the beta from excel regression, how you derive the estimated intrinsic values from different valuation models you use.
d. Investment Risk – You are also required to discuss all assumptions for valuations and risks associated with these assumptions. How changes of assumptions will affect your estimated intrinsic value. Please discuss risks associated with the companys operation, competitors response, and markets.
RUBRIC :
1. Clearly outline the structure of the paper (2%)
2. Conclusions are clearly stated in the executive Summary (3%)
3. Introduction: clearly describe business (5%)
4. Discussions on industry overview and competitive positioning (15%)
5. Firms Investment discussion and summary (20%)
6. Financial analysis (20%)
7. Valuation (20%)
8. Discussion on Investment risks (10%)
9. The paper is free of gramma issues and other errors (5%)
