The theme of this assignment is the reporting and measurement of corporate performance. The assignment requires you to select a company in accordance with the essential criteria provided and to complete the tasks specified below.

You are required to:

– Evaluate the company’s financial performance as reported in the Income Statement (or Statement of Profit or Loss) for its accounting period which ended between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2018. This period is your primary focus but you are also required to consider how the company has performed compared to the two preceding accounting periods. You should include copies of the Income Statements (or Statements of Profit or Loss) within an appendix.

You should explain how the business works and why it performed as it has, through consideration of the factors affecting the company, the strategies it has pursued and the economic and industrial context in which it operates. You should draw on the narrative ‘front end’ of the annual report together with relevant notes on matters such as segmental performance and exceptional (non-recurring) items to inform your evaluation.

You are not required to compare this company’s performance with any other company, although reference to market average data, if available, could be relevant. You are not required to evaluate the Statement of Financial Position for any of the years involved, although the statement would be relevant if aspects of it have impacted on company performance e.g. additional debt has increased the finance cost.

– Evaluate the use of performance measurement by this company in its annual report for its accounting period which ended between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2018. You should compare this with the current use of performance measurement by another company operating broadly in the same business sector. You should explore why the two companies have chosen their respective performance measures and how they might aid in the monitoring and improvement of company performance.

It is not necessary for the comparator company to use the same accounting date as your main company but it does need to be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

You should evaluate:

1. The financial performance measures the companies consider in their annual reports, including investment ratios;

1. The non-financial performance measures they consider in their annual reports.

(40 marks)

Essential criteria for company selection

The main company you choose

1. must be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

and

2. must have published a full annual report for an accounting period which ended on a date between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2018.

It is important that you choose a company with Income Statements (or Statements of Profit or Loss) with which you are comfortable and preferably with a Strategic Report which features clear disclosure of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

You should spend some time choosing your company. You may find some annual reports more user-friendly than others. Before engaging fully with the annual report, you should ensure that it gives you adequate scope to address all aspects of the assignment brief.

It is not necessary for the company you choose to be performing well: your task is to evaluate the given aspects of its annual report objectively.

Having chosen a valid main and comparator company (for part b), you are advised to visit their websites, which may be a valuable source of background information. Annual reports for the current year and prior years are usually available to view and/or download within the website area entitled ‘investors’, ‘investor relations’ or ‘about our company’.

Please note that whilst you are expected to make use of the full annual reports, you are required to demonstrate your own analytical skills. You must NOT simply reproduce parts of the company report. If you do make use of text, charts, tables or any other material published in the annual report, please ensure that you acknowledge this, as failure to do so would constitute plagiarism.

 Assignments should be typed, using 1.5 spacing and an easy-to-read 12-point font. You should use double-sided printing, and ensure that assignments are securely bound. Written assignments and dissertations/business projects must not exceed the word count indicated in the module handbook/assessment brief.

MARKING GUIDELINES

Performance is judged against the following criteria:

• Relevance to question(s)

• Organisation, structure and presentation
• Depth of understanding
• Analysis and discussion
• Use of sources and referencing
• Overall conclusions