This assignment seeks to assess your ability to: Present a clear, well-structured report using appropriate style and language. Evaluate the performance of a company through a critical analysis of its published financial statements over the two latest years, as follows: Locate, extract and analyse data from the published financial statements[1] to provide a comprehensive analysis of a company's operations and performance; Structure an argument about performance based on the analysis of five aspects of performance evaluation: Profitability Efficiency Short-term solvency Long term solvency Market based ratios Case Scenario You are a managerial accountant who has been asked to analyse the latest Annual Report and Financial Statements (it must contain two years information) of a publicly listed company that is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (www.asx.com.au). You must choose the publicly listed company and produce a comprehensive report for distribution to the company's management to comply with all the requirements listed below. Note that the calculation of ratios does not earn many marks. While they are expected to be accurate, most marks will be earned by demonstrating your understanding of ratio analysis and its uses. This will be apparent to the reader from your analysis of the implications of the ratios you present and your ability to provide some explanation through the recognition of the interaction between ratios. You are also expected to make some recommendations to management based on your analysis. Required Prepare a word-processed report containing the following: An analysis of the information contained in the latest Annual Report and Financial Statements of the company, commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of the company over two years by applying ratio analysis in the categories listed above; Suggestions or recommendations for improving the business, based on the analysis; Full referencing of your sources of information, which may include any external sources such as the financial press, commentators and the internet that you may have used to strengthen your analysis. You should put the ratio calculations in an appropriate appendix so that the body of the text only states the result of the calculation (e.g. '…argument is supported by a debtors collection period of 26 days') and not the process of calculating it. Pay attention to the presentation of this appendix so that it is user friendly and it is easy to locate any ratio. Do not calculate every ratio in the list in your textbook—you should be selective and only go beyond the major ratios, which are discussed in the textbook, if you have decided that further detailed analysis of an aspect of the statements will better enable the development or justification of a recommendation to management. The quality of the analysis is more important than the quantity of ratios. Please submit a copy of the annual report with your assignment. Important Instructions Assignments must contain proper citations and referencing using the Harvard style referred to in the AIB Style Guide, that is: citations (or in-text references) of quoted and paraphrased materials to support your arguments/comments, and a reference list relating specifically to your in-text references. Your grade will be adversely affected if there is no/poor citations and/or reference list, as referred to above. Assignments of this nature normally contain between 6 and 12 relevant references from different sources in the reference list. All references must be from credible sources. Journals sourced from the EBSCO Host Online Library should be used first, then books, company documents, and other media. You are encouraged to make use of the Online Library. AIB checks assignments with anti-plagiarism software. Please carefully check your assignments before final submission to ensure that all quoted and paraphrased materials are properly cited and referenced. The total number of words should not exceed 2500 words (excluding your cover page, executive summary, table of contents, list of references or appendices.) Penalties may apply if you exceed the word limit (please refer to the Assessment Policy on AIB website). You may place any supporting material that exceeds this word limit in the appendices. However, a reader should not have to look at an appendix to determine the main thrust of the points you are making in your assignment. So make sure all your main points are in the body of your assignment and refer to the appendices that will support the points you are making. You are strongly advised to carefully read the AIB Style Guide for clarification of these requirements. For guidance on how to write an assignment, please refer to the AIB Assignment Guide.