To evaluate the financial performance of a Canadian publicly traded company by analyzing its financial statements and stock price history.

need you to analyze
– Income Statement Ratios.
-Balance Sheet Ratios.
for high liner food company in canada
MY PART JUST THE RATIOS ANALYSIS IN FINAL REPORT
FOR 1 TO 1.5 PAGES

http://www.highlinerfoods.com/en/home/default.aspx

High Liner Foods

Overall Project Objectives:

1. To evaluate the financial performance of a Canadian publicly traded company by analyzing its financial statements and stock price history.
2. To understand and explain the relationship between the performance of a company and the “macro” business environment.
3. To generate recommendations for improving the company’s performance, based on knowledge gained in this course.
4. To complete a financial analysis project within a group environment.

Company Criteria:

1. Must be a publicly traded Canadian company which has enough depth to facilitate a suitable analysis. (Usually the company will be assigned by your instructor.)
2. Must have an adequate history – 4 or 5 years of complete Financial Statements.

Minimum Requirements – Status Report # 1 – Due:_________________

A brief (1 page) Business Memo Format to the instructor:

1. Identify all group participants’ names, the company name, and its website and ticker

symbol.

1. Describe the nature and primary activities of your company.
2. Identify the company’s fiscal year end, and total revenue and net income for the most

recent fiscal year.

3. Determine the company’s stock price on the first date of the school term.
4. List the main competitors for your company.

5. Make note of whether you have attempted to obtain a set of printed published financial statements. These are sometimes available from the investor relations department of the company.   It is easier to analyze hard copy of financial statements if available.  (However, many companies only provide statements online.)

Minimum Requirements – Status Report # 2 – Due:__________________

A Business Report which should include:

1. A brief (1 page) executive summary briefly describing the contents of this report, and making note of any particularly interesting or challenging issues you have noted.Written qualitative analysis of your data is not expected at this point.
2. Four or five years of Financial Statements loaded into a spreadsheet (Excel or similar). You may need to reformat the data to make it “user friendly” and include relevant subtotals if they do not currently exist (such as “Gross Margin” or “Total Current Assets”). Include the Statement of Earnings (Income Statement), Statement of Financial Position (Balance Sheet) and the Statement of Cash Flows.This information should come from the company’s published financial statements (available online), not from an investment website (such as Yahoo finance). 

3. A horizontal (over time) and vertical (common size) analysis of the Statement of Earnings and the Statement of Financial Position for the 4 or 5 years, using your spreadsheet. The horizontal analysis may include year to year dollar and percentage changes, and trend analysis (over 5 years).
4. Acomplete setof financial ratios (from ch. 2 & 3 in the text) calculated using your spreadsheet. You are assessing the company’s performance, so the more information you have, the stronger your analysis will be. Note that some ratios are more or less relevant to certain industries or companies (e.g. Retail would rely heavily on inventory turnover, whereas service industries would not.)
5. The preliminary evaluation of the participation of your group members up to and including Status Report #2(this is to be submitted separately from the report). This is to identify and manage any problems with individual participation prior to the final report.
6. A copy of the original 4 or 5 year financial statements(if available).  Ensure you include the Management Discussion and Analysis section, and any relevant notes to the financial statements (for the most recent year only).  If the annual report and accompanying information is excessively long and/or detailed, you may ask your instructor to review the statements online.  If you do so, please provide precise details (link) of the relevant website (usually the corporate site).

Minimum Requirements – Final Report– Due:______________________

1. A) Table of Contents: use helpful WORD technology to build your Table of Contents
2. B) Executive Summary: 1-2 pages long – (describes methodology, limitations, summarizes key points and recommendations). This needs to be excellent – in industry the reader would not read further if the executive summary is not compelling.  (“Google” Executive Summary if you don’t know how to write one.)
3. C) CompanyInformation and Context:
4. Briefly describethe company’s activities, industry and operations, history/background, head office and executive information

2. Include a qualitative analysis of the company’s past, current and expected strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis),focusing particularly on financial aspects. (This is not a general or marketing SWOT; the focus should be on the financial SWOTs as revealed through your financial statement and stock market analysis.)  Remember, Strengths and Weaknesses are internal, Opportunities and Threats are external.

SWOTS need to be clear, concise and relevant.  For example, over the years we have seen the words “interest rates” as an example of a SWOT (in all 4 categories).  A more reasonable comment would be, for example, under opportunities, “current low borrowing rates may provide opportunity to use greater financial leverage for investment in capital assets”.

3. In your analysis you must include information on at least 2 current events relating to your company. For example, a current event may be a change in the company’s markets, a dividend announcement, a stock split, or a change of management or board etc. Explain how these events have impacted or may impact corporate performance and share price.

Ensure these current events are appropriately referenced, and include the original article (newspaper clipping or internet printout) as an Exhibit or Appendix, or with an appropriate hyperlink.

1. D) Financial Statement Analysis:

1. Make necessary changes to your numerical analyses based on the feedback from your instructor from Status Report # 2. The financial statements, horizontal, vertical and ratio analyses must all be re-submittedwith those changes, as properly referenced appendices to your final report.
2. Interpret the results of your horizontal, vertical and ratio analysis (making reference to the relevant appendices). Look for relationships among your different analyses.  For example, you may notice that inventory has increased doing your horizontal and vertical analysis of the balance sheet.  You might also note that the inventory turnover ratio has decreased while doing your ratio analysis.  These two pieces of analyses are related!
3. Compare major ratios to industry norms or a competitor.
4. Since you are aiming for a concise report, ensure that you highlight significant or dynamic ratios.
5. Do NOT define each ratio. Your reader knows what they are.
6. If possible, calculate DOL, DFL and DCL for the most recent two years. If this is not possible, use your ratio analysis to determine the use of debt/equity financing and to evaluate the company’s financing strategies.
7. Analyze any further financial information you consider useful to evaluate performance (for example, information based on individual business or geographic segments). Ensure that you have considered significant activity captured on the Statement of Cash Flows and the Statement of Changes in Shareholders’ Equity.
8. Prepare and analyze appropriate graphs/charts using your spreadsheet program to support your analyses.

1. E) Market (Stock) Analysis Requirements:
2. Graph (or download) your company’s share price history for the period of 4 or 5 years. Properly reference the source of your data. You require a minimum of 3 separate graphs:
   • Price for the past 5 years – (long term)
   • Price for the last year – (short term)
   • Current share price activity for the most recent month – (what’s happening now and expected)

Resources: the company’s corporate site, the TSX site, Globe Investor, Canadian             ,Investopedia, www.bigcharts.com, Yahoo etc.

2. Provide and interpret comparative data against arelevant stock index. You may also choose to compare prices against a competitor.  (This is easily done using interactive charts such as those available on Yahoo Finance.)
3. Prepare a qualitative analysis of the stock’s performance, explaining significant changes instock prices and/or volumes. (Your explanation should refer to the effect of global, national and local events, and consider the past, current and future impact of those events on your stock.)
4. Identify/chart the company’s dividend performance (if applicable) and interpret your results.

1. F) Conclusion and Recommendations:

• Summarize your analyses in evaluating and explaining the company’s overall financial performance from the perspectives of:The Board, Shareholders (Existing and Potential), Lenders, and Management. You may choose to reference specific ratios in this analysis. (For example, lenders would be interested in the Current Ratio.)

• Provide recommendations to improve performance using the financial management techniques learned in the course (for example, if you notice that the Average Collection period has deteriorated you could suggest “Offer discounts to improve cash flow”). These recommendations should be based on issues noted in your financial statement and market analysis, and should be very clear, relevant and specific.  Also, identify how these recommendations should impact profitability and share price.

Important Point:  This is a key portion of the report, is worth several marks, and should not be “left to the last minute”.  This is your opportunity to really reflect on what you have learned from the analysis!   An industry reader might jump directly from the executive summary to the report’s conclusions and recommendations.

1. G) Appendices: use proper appendices for your numerical analysis, and make reference to them

Additional Instructions:

Company Annual Reports:

You are not required to obtain a hard copy of the annual report as some companies only distribute these electronically.   However, if it is possible, request 2 copies of the annual report (one for you, and one to be submitted with Status Report#2).(Call and ask; many companies are happy to provide “glossy” annual reports.)

Project Reports:

1. All reports must be word-processed, 1 ½ or double-spaced (font size 11 or 12) and should be clear, concise, analytical and readable.
2. Reports are kept by the instructor; you may wish to make another copy for yourself.
3. All reports should be professionally formatted, proof-read, and printed for submission. The final report should be between 10-20 pages in length (before appendices).Anything over 20 pages will not be read. Appendices with all of the appropriate financial and stock analyses should be used and referenced within the text of your report.
4. Electronic copies are required of Status Report # 2 and the Final report.
5. All information sources should be properly referenced in accordance with Capilano

University Policy and your learning from prior English and Communications courses.Plagiarism in any form is not tolerated and will result in a 0 grade onthe assignment.

Strategies for Success

1. Review the instructions and marking guide carefully.
2. Start work on the project early.
3. Put effort into getting good numbers for Status Report #2.
4. Manage your groups early, and form a group contract with consequences.Make sure the work is fairly distributed.
5. When doing the final analysis, for the final report, focus on areas of considerable change in either dollars or %. Remember that % changes can be very significant on small dollar amounts, but not significant in the overall picture.
6. Don’t forget to look at the cash flow statement… it often reveals areas of concern.
7. Work together on all analyses, conclusions and recommendations. It may be appropriate to divide the mechanical tasks among the group members, but the final report must be integrated. The reader should be directed logically to the conclusions and recommendations reached.
8. To encourage this co-ordination, you should plan to complete your final report at least one week before it is due. This will provide all team members with the opportunity to critique and improve “the finished product”.  (This activity may make the difference between a “C” report and an “A” report!)
9. Think “concise”! Assume that your readers/audience are very busy people, so make every word of your report/presentation worthwhile.   Highlight key issues clearly.
10. When doing the final analysis for the final written report, make sure that your appendices are properly titled and referenced.

Evaluation

1. Individual final marks will be adjusted if group members do or do not make proportionate contributions to the project. Adjustments will be numerically based on performance evaluations.
2. Status Report #2 will be reviewed and returnedone week after submission. Any errors or omissions which are noted should be remedied by the final report or marks will be deducted from its analysis section.
3. Individuals must submit 2 performance evaluation reports.
   2. The first performance report assesses group members’ participation and contribution on the project up to Status Report #2.
   3. The second performance report is an evaluation of the total participation and contribution to the final product.

Failure to complete the evaluation forms will result in an individual grade of 0 on the project.

Marking guides for Status Report # 2, the Final Report, and the Presentation follow on the next 3 pages, and then Peer Evaluations follow those.

Group Status Report #2 Evaluation Guide

Requirement	Available Marks	Marks Achieved	Comments
1.    An executive summary briefly describing the contents of this report, and making note of any particularly interesting or challenging issues you have noted.	2
2.    The Financial Statements (Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Cash Flow Statement) in spreadsheet form, properly formatted, including relevant headers and subtotals, with all 4/5 years for each statement on one page.  Key subtotals must be presented (e.g. Gross Margin, Total Current Assets, etc.).	1  I/S 1 B/S 1 SCF
3.    Horizontal (over the 4-5 year timeframe) and vertical (common size) analysis of the Income Statement and Balance Sheet for the 4/5 years, also properly formatted and presented in an easy to read and understand manner.	3 H I/S 3 V I/S 3 H B/S 3 V B/S
4.    Comprehensive ratio analysis calculations for the 4-5 years. You must use your spreadsheet to calculate the ratios from the formatted data. Ratios should be clear in terms of units eg) days, times, %	12 (25 ratios in total if all relevant)
5.    The preliminary evaluation of the participation of your group members up to and including Status Report #2 (this is to be submitted separately from the report). This is to identify and manage any problems with individual participation prior to the final report.	Not graded but required
6.    A copy of the original 4/5 year financial statements or reference to the website.	½
Important Note:  All Financial Statement data should be formatted and properly presented as Appendices in your report.  Both electronic and print copies are mandatory.	½
Total	30

Note:  There is no qualitative analysis required for this report.  

Final Report Evaluation Guide:  (refer to the handout for more detailed requirements)

Final Report Requirements:		Marks
Overall Presentation:	-table of contents -executive summary -proper use of appendices and referencing -overall format, presentation, grammar, professionalism	/1 /10 /5 /5 /21
Description of Company’s Background/Activities/Operations:	– activities, industry and operations, history/background, head office and executive information	/10
SWOT Analysis:	-Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (financial)	/10
Current Events:	-summary and references(copy of article or link to website) -relevance to and integration with the rest of the report	2 3 /5
Financial Statement Analysis:	Analysis and Discussion of: -Horizontal Income Statement -Vertical Income Statement -Horizontal Balance Sheet -Vertical Balance Sheet -Income Statement Ratios -Balance Sheet Ratios -comparatives (industry or a competitor or both) -cash and shareholders’ equity -operating and financial leverage Graphics supporting your analysis -inclusion of items missed on Status Report 2 (marks will be deducted if those items have not been updated/changed)	/4 /4 /4 /4 /4 /4 /4 /4 /4 /5 /41
Stock Analysis:	-discussion of relevant events and trends -use and discussion of comparatives -comparative graphics (current, 1 year, 5 year) -dividend performance (or reasoning for no dividends)	/10 /3 /3 /2 /18
Overall Evaluation of Company Performance and Conclusion:	– summary of the report, highlighting key items, and considering multiple perspectives	/10
Recommendations for Improved Performance:	– specific, clear, and reasonable recommendations, which are related to the financial and stock analysis	/20
Written Final Report Total		/135
Project Presentation		/25
Update Assignments and Status Reports:
Comments provided on Status Report #1	Group Membership & Company Data	/10
Comments provided on Status Report # 2	Financial Statement Horizontal, Vertical and Ratio Analysis	/30
Total Group Project:  (individual marks may be adjusted based on peer evaluations)		/200

Performance Evaluation Report #1 – due with Status Report # 2

1. All evaluations are confidential and should be submitted directly to the instructor individually by each group member.
2. This evaluationassesses group members’ contributions to the preparation and submission of Status Report #2 and notes that tasks have been assigned.
3. Evaluate 4 characteristics:
   • Attendance: Has the individual attended group meetings? Was he/she on time?
   • Participation/contribution: Has the individual actively participated and contributed to group discussions and decisions?
   • Undertaking/Efforts: Has the individual made appropriate efforts to complete his/her required share of the work? Has he/she TRIED to do the work?
   • Achievements/Results: Did the individual ACHIEVE the required results? Was the work done on time? Was the work done well (quality)?

Rank each of these characteristics using the following letter grades:

A: Excellent;     B: Above average;    C: Average;    D: Below average;    F: Poor;

You are to include YOURSELF in this evaluation chart:

Name		Assigned Tasks	Attendance	Contribution	Efforts	Results
	Print your name: _____________________			Signature: _____________________

* Use the back of the page to make any additional comments.  Please inform your instructor NOW if intervention is required.

Performance Evaluation Report # 1 – due with Status Report # 2

Use this page if you wish to make additional comments:

Performance EvaluationReport #2 – due with final report

These evaluations are confidential. Please submit individually to the instructor. If you prefer, you may place your finished form in a sealed envelope.

Explanatory notes (for the chart below) are similar to those provided with Performance Evaluation Report #1.

Rank each of these characteristics using the following letter grades:

A: Excellent;     B: Above average;    C: Average;    D: Below average;    F: Poor;

Chart A:    Include yourself in this chart.

Name		Assigned Tasks (please list all)	Attendance	Assigned Tasks were completed on time	Efforts	Results
	Print your name: _____________________			Signature: _____________________

Chart B: Include yourself in this Chart:

Rank the participation of each group member in terms of his/her contribution to the entire project.

The left side is a sample of how the chart is to be completed. Use the right side for your group.

SAMPLE ONLY			ACTUAL EVALUATION
Name of Group Member	% Contribution		Name of Group Member	% Contribution
Ali	30%		Your Name: __________
Ashley	25%
Jiyoun	30%
Lee	10%
Yana	5%
Total	100%		Total	100%

Optional

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