Project Assignment

Capital budgeting projects are some of the more important duties of financial managers. These projects involve spending a great deal of money for the benefit of the company. As such, an investment can play a major role in the future success of the company. The best decisions will return cash flow and profits that will maximize shareholder value.

In this course you have a major course project worth 50% of your final grade.For this project, you will apply what you have learned in the modules to create a basic pro forma statement necessary to convince someone to provide the start-up costs of a potential investment or capital budgeting project. You will select the actual investment project, identify necessary equipment and human resources, and estimate potential revenues, costs, profits, and cash flows. You will use a public company and choose an investment that would benefit that company. This plan will be presented in a Microsoft (MS) PowerPoint presentation you will submit on 3/20/2017.

It is very important that you begin working on the project as soon as possible so that you can complete all of the required items before the due date for the project, which cannot be extended for any reason. Late penalties for the project will be 10% per day given the extended time to complete.

To begin

This module, review the project guidelines and begin to search for a project idea. You will submit that idea for approval in Next Module. To begin your work, start by finding a US public company that interests you. Next, review its press releases and other company information to help you determine an investment in property, plant, or equipment that would potentially benefit this company. This could be anything from a new piece of equipment for a current location, a new division, opening a new global operation, or creating a new product/service.

Course Project Guidelines

Your course project will consist of a 15-20-slide Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. These slides will help you present your investment idea to the President and CEO of the public company. As such, the slides must be well crafted to help convince the leader of the company of the need for the investment, the possible risks, and potential returns. Remember, the slides should outline the key points to be made and not overwhelm the viewer with too many details. You will provide the details in the speaker notes for each slide. The slide presentation must include:

1. Cover page listing the company, project, date, and presenter.

2. Sufficient background so that a potential investor understands the business.

3. The investment idea and summary justification.

4. Enough historic data from the worksheet you develop in Modules 3 and 4 to give an investor an understanding of revenues, costs, expenses, cash flows, and potential returns in dollars and using capital budgeting analysis concepts to demonstrate viability.

5. The break-even of the project.

6. Your final analysis summary that details why the company should invest the money in this project.

7. Speaker notes in your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to include background information that you would communicate verbally in a presentation. This speaker notes content should be the length necessary to explain the outline presented in the slides. Each slide must have the requisite speaker notes to explain the material/data presented in the slides as if you are making a formal presentation and expect to verbalize those words.

This slide presentation is due before the end of class on Day 5 of Module 5 and is worth 25% of your course final grade or 250 points. Combined with the other submitted elements of the project, the total points allocated to this course project will be 500 points or 50% of your grade. The grading of this project will be extensive to match the percentage of course grade. Make sure you provide substantial work in the creating of this project.

1. What is the full legal name of the US public company that you will use in your course project?

2. What is the stock symbol for the public company you have chosen?

3. Why did you specifically choose this company for your project? Why are you interested in the company?

4. What is the nature of the investment for this company that you are planning? Please explain your investment idea.