Assignment: Project Financing

Investing in products and services should produce returns so that stockholders, stakeholders, and others are interested in the organization.

In this assignment, you will learn about a new product or service.

Tasks:

For this Assignment ("Understanding the Numbers for Better Decisions"), you chose a publicly-traded company and analyzed its financial statements. Use that company to do the following:

1. Identify a new product or service-either recently rolled out or about to be rolled out-in the company you chose in Module 1 (Note: Information about new products or services can be found on a company's website or in the management's discussion and analysis section of the company's annual report. If you cannot locate a new product or service introduced by the company please invent something.)

2. Analyze the quality of the company's existing products or services. Try answering the following questions about returns on the new product or service of your choice.

o What is the return on equity earned by the company? Based upon this return, is the company picking good products or services?

o What is the return on capital earned by the company? Based upon this return, is the company picking good products or services?

3. Discuss how the company financed the initiative and why it was perceived to be advantageous. To answer this question, you might want to look at the following:

• How sensitive has this company's value been to changes in macro-economic variables such as interest rates, currency movements, inflation, and the economy?

• How sensitive has this company's operating income been to changes in the same variables?

• How sensitive is the sector's value and operating income to the same variables?Use the following file naming convention.