Industry & Company Analysis Project (Fall 2018)
Assigned Company: see list
Primary Competitor: from Industry/Sector
Use data from Yahoo!Finance, Google Finance, Mergent Online, Bloomberg, the company’s annual report, and other public data to complete the following.
Assignment: Conduct industry and financial company analysis of assigned company and its competitors to provide recommendation to management on future goals and strategy. Provide a written report which summarizes your analysis and provides recommendations to management. Your summary analysis should be based upon your detailed research of your assigned company, its industry/sector, and its competitors in the industry/sector.
SUMMARY ANALYSIS MUST INCLUDE (narrative with supporting charts and graphs; no more than
8 pages):
(1) Industry Overview and Analysis (25 pts). What is the industry outlook for your assigned
company? How does your company compare to competitors in the industry? Discuss the following:
a) Each company’s market share or market position.
b) How current economic conditions impact these companies.
c) Overall perception (leadership, goodwill, social responsibility, and employee relations) of
each company.
d) Future outlook of your company.
e) Market Ratios (also, compare to industry averages)
Price / Earnings Ratio
Price / Book Ratio
(2) Company Analysis Summary (20 pts). Discuss SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threat) Analysis for your assigned company.
(3) Financial Ratio Analysis (40 pts). Compute and discuss the 3 year trend for your company and
one of its competitors using the most recent 3 years of annual financial statements. Compare and
contrast each company for the following ratios. Discuss the meaning of each ratio. Provide charts
and graphs to summary and highlight your findings.
a. Liquidity Ratios
Current Ratio
Quick Ratio or acid test
b. Solvency Ratios
Total Debt to Equity Ratio
Times Interest Earned Ratio (if company does not have interest expense, discuss the
meaning or impact)
c. Asset Management Ratios
Total Asset Turnover Ratio
Days Sales in Receivable Ratio
d. Profitability Ratios
Profit Margin Ratio
Return on Assets Ratio
1 | Page(4) Financial Trend Analysis (10 pts). Conduct a 3 year trend analysis of your assigned company’s
sales and profit growth trends. Discuss the outlook for your company.
(5) Stock Performance (25 pts). Compare and contrast the monthly stock price performance of your
company and one of its competitors over 36 months (3 years). Discuss each company’s standard
deviation, coefficient of variance, and beta as it relates to its standard alone and market risk. Provide
graphs to summary your findings.
(6) Investment and Capital Budgeting (20 pts). Discuss the company’s most recent and planned
capital budgeting activities. Discuss each company’s capital budgeting activities in comparison to the
industry. Discuss your inference from this data about the company’s growth potential.
(7) Recommendations (40 pts). Provide specific recommendations to the CEO to enable the company
to improve its financial position and growth, overcome potential weaknesses and threats, and
implement opportunities. Identify the time frame that these recommendations should be implemented
and what resources will be needed.
Format (10 pts). Submit one Microsoft Word file or Adobe (*.pdf) file containing the following:
An Industry Analysis report of less than 6 pages in the format of a Fact Sheet (see examples
posted on Blackboard)
Your name, assigned company and its competitor, and the industry/sector.
A written summary report with narrative, supporting graphs, tables, figures, and page numbers.
Figures and tables are embedded in the document (not a separate file) to supplement your
discussion. Do not expect the reader to interpret your figures and tables. Do not use charts and
graphs from Yahoo!Finance or other on-line sources.
All the topic areas listed above must be included. Use the bolded words for each item as a section
header before presenting the requested information.
Do not include extraneous information which does not support your analysis.
Include references, as appropriate. Note: this should be your analysis and not on-line analysis
from Yahoo!Finance and other sources.
Submit report via Blackboard before the due date listed in syllabus. Late submissions will receive a zero.
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