Part 1

Overview:The final project for this course is the creation of a financial analysis and planning report, including a presentation to the executive management team. For Milestone One, submit Component 1 Section II: Current Financial Status.

From the company's annual reports, you will pull the financial statements from the last three years (balance sheet and income statement). Calculate the liquidity, efficiency, profitability, market value, and leverage ratios for the past three years. Analyze the trends of the ratios over the past three years.

Prompt:Milestone One should contain the following critical elements:

II. Current Financial Status:Analyze the position of the firm and whether the company regressed or improved financially over the past three years. Be sure to situate your company within the broader economy and its specific industry, particularly with respect to major competitors and industry and market trends. Your analysis, supported by relevant spreadsheets and graphs, must include, but need not be limited to, the following:

A. Liquidity

B. Efficiency

C. Profitability

D. Market Value

E. Leverage

Guidelines for Submission:Your draft must contain all of the elements listed above. It should be at least 4 pages in length (excluding the title page, references, supporting calculations, and appendices) and should follow APA guidelines. You must include calculations and appropriate graphs, tables, references, and other appendices as needed to support your written analysis. Cite your sources within the text of your paper and on the reference page.

Part 2

Overview:The final project for this course is the creation of a financial analysis and planning report, including a presentation to the executive management team. For Milestone Two, submit a draft of your financial projections (Component 1: Section III).

Project the next three year's financial statements and free cash flows. Using the projected cash flows, use the cost of capital as a discounting rate to obtain the present value of the firm. Analyze the projections compared to the current market value of the firm.

Prompt:Milestone Two should contain the following sections:

III. Projections:Based on the company's financial statements, your analysis, and any additional evidence, project the company's performance for the next three years. Are there any areas of concern? Is the company in good financial shape for moving forward?

Discuss a best-case, worst-case, and most likely scenario, including a sustainable growth rate for sales based on existing financial statements and any macroeconomic and financial market conditions that might impact the firm's strategic objectives. You must thoroughly address the assumptions behind your predictions, supported by spreadsheet calculations. At a minimum, your analysis must cover:

A. Weight of equity

B. Weight of debt

C. Cost of debt

D. Cost of equity

E. Tax rate

F. Valueof the company'sstockcompared to your forecasted value and free cash flow

Guidelines for Submission:Your draft must contain all of the elements listed above. It should be at least 5 pages in length (excluding the title page, references, supporting calculations, and appendices) and should follow APA guidelines. You must include calculations and appropriate graphs, tables, references, and other appendices as needed to support your written analysis. Cite your sources within the text of your paper and on the reference page.

Part 3

Overview:The final project for this course is the creation of a financial analysis and planning report, including a presentation to the executive management team. For Milestone Three, submit a draft of your international market analysis (Component 1: Section IV).

Prompt:Milestone Three should contain the following critical elements:

IV. International Market Analysis:Analyze the market positioning of the firm in one foreign market. Examples of foreign markets can be found in the firm's annual report. From secondary sources, pull the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and the foreign market currency and use linear regression to predict the exchange rates for the next year. Lastly, analyze the different risk management tools used by the firm (for example, hedging, insurance, and so on).

Guidelines for Submission:Your draft must contain all of the elements listed above. It should be at least 5 pages in length (excluding the title page, references, supporting calculations, and appendices) and should follow APA guidelines.

You must include calculations and appropriate graphs, tables, references, and other appendices as needed to support your written analysis. Cite your sources within the text of your paper and on the reference page.

Part 4

Overview:The final project for this course is the creation of a financial analysis and planning report, including a presentation to the executive management team. For Milestone Four, submit a draft of your executive summary (Component 1: Section I) and recommendations (Component 1: Section V).

From the financial analysis and planning report, provide a summary of your analysis. You will also provide recommendations to the firm's executives. The recommendations should be based both on your analysis and current market conditions.

Prompt:Milestone Four should contain the following critical elements:

I. Executive Summary:Briefly provide the "bottom line" of your financial analysis and key recommendations to a busy executive audience.

V. Recommendations:Provide high-level, strategic recommendations for your company for the upcoming three years. Based on your analysis and interpretations, where are there opportunities for growth?

What risks does the company face, and how might it mitigate them? Apply relevant principles of asset allocation and portfolio diversification in making your suggestions and assess the risks and returns for each individually as well as the group of suggestions as a whole. You should also consider how changing market conditions might affect your recommendations and how the recommendations fit with the company's investment needs and priorities.

Guidelines for Submission:Your draft must contain all of the elements listed above. It should be at least 2 pages in length (excluding the title page, references, supporting calculations, and appendices) and should follow APA guidelines. You must include calculations and appropriate graphs, tables, references, and other appendices as needed to support your written analysis. Cite your sources within the text of your paper and on the reference page.

Assume you are a senior financial manager at a major multinational corporation. (You may select any major multinational corporation of interest as long as it is publicly traded on a major U.S. stock exchange.

Your choice should be approved by the instructor early in the course.) In preparation for an upcoming strategic planning meeting, you have been asked to review the company's financial performance, analyze market conditions to predict its future performance, and make recommendations regarding potential investment opportunities and managing risk.

To prepare for the meeting, you will create two artifacts to share with the rest of the executive management team: a background financial analysis and planning report, supported by appropriate data analysis and forecasting, and a brief presentation (with speaker notes) highlighting your key findings and recommendations. You may make reasonable assumptions regarding company details, as needed, to inform your suggestions. However, you must specify these assumptions and explain why they are reasonable clearly in your report and presentation.

Capstone Component 1: Financial Analysis and Planning Report

For Component 1of your capstone, you will develop a comprehensive financial analysis and planning report that lays out your firm's current and projected financial performance in light of market conditions. Your report should also suggest potential investment opportunities and strategies for managing risk for the executive management team to discuss in strategic planning.

In order to provide an appropriate context for your analysis and recommendations, you should look at your company's financial performance over the past three years. (You may also include historical information prior to this time horizon if relevant. However, keep in mind that the report is not intended as a historical analysis of the company, but rather as a tool for strategic planning.) You should also project forward at least three years in your modeling and recommendations for the future.

Remember that you are communicating to the executive leadership team,so your report should be succinct, clear, and well supported throughout by credible research and evidence, including relevant spreadsheets, charts, and graphs.

Specifically, the following critical elementsmust be addressed:

I. Executive Summary:Briefly provide the "bottom line" of your financial analysis and key recommendations to a busy executive audience.

II. Current Financial Status:Analyze the position of the firm and whether the company regressed or improved financially over the past three years. Be sure to situate your company within the broader economy and its specific industry, particularly with respect to major competitors and industry and market trends. Your analysis, supported by relevant spreadsheets and graphs, must include, but need not be limited to, the following:

A. Liquidity

B. Efficiency

C. Profitability

D. Market Value

E. Leverage

Projections: Based on the company's financial statements, your analysis, and any additional evidence, project the company's performance for the next three years. Are there any areas of concern? Is the company in good financial shape for moving forward?

Discuss a best-case, worst-case, and most likely scenario, including a sustainable growth rate for sales based on existing financial statements and any macroeconomic and financial market conditions that might impact the firm's strategic objectives. You must thoroughly address the assumptions behind your predictions, supported by spreadsheet calculations. At a minimum, your analysis must cover:

A. Weight of equity

B. Weight of debt

C. Cost of debt

D. Cost of equity

E. Tax rate

F. Valueof the company'sstockcompared to your forecasted value and free cash flow

IV. International Market Analysis:Articulate the company's position with respect to at least one of the foreign markets in which it operates. Use statistical regression to predict the exchange rates for the next year. How does the company manage foreign exchange risks, and what, if anything, might it do differently?

V. Recommendations:Provide high-level, strategic recommendations for your company for the upcoming three years, based on your analysis and interpretations. Where are there opportunities for growth? What risks does the company face, and how might it mitigate them? Apply relevant principles of asset allocation and portfolio diversification in making your suggestions, and assess the risks and returns for each individually, as well as the group of suggestions as a whole. You should also consider how changing market conditions might affect your recommendations and how the recommendations fit with the company's investment needs and priorities.

Capstone Component 2: Presentation to Executive Management Team

For the second and final component of your capstone, you will create a summary presentation that conveys the key points of your analysis and recommendations to members of the executive management team. The summary presentation will take the form of a visual presentation with speaker notes, such as a PowerPoint presentation or other instructor-approved medium, designed to reinforce the presentation skills you will need as a finance professional and in showcasing yourskills in job interviews.

Like the executive summary for your paper, your presentation should provide fellow members of the executive team with a concise overview of the company's current and projected financial performance. In particular, you should focus on key assumptions and findings that will help the company navigate complex international financial environments and how your findings and assumptions impact future planning and stakeholder value.

Remember that while your audience wants to know you have thoroughly analyzed the company's finances, they do not want a verbatim or lengthy repetition of the information in the background paper. Instead, you should strategically select the key messages and level of detail based on your audience, bearing in mind the key information they will want to knowand the types of concerns they are likely to have, and anticipating the types of questions they are likely to ask.