Selected organization - Harischandra Mills Word Count - 2500 The company I've chosen is Harischandra Mills. Financial comparison could be done with Renuka Agri or another FMCG company in Sri...

FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND LAW
ACADEMIC YEAR 2022/23

Coursework Assessment Brief
Submission and feedback dates
Submission deadline:
Is eligible for 5 calendar day late submission window
N.B. all times are 24-hour clock, cu
ent local time (at time of submission) in the UK
Submission details
Module title and code: UMADFJ-15-M Financial Decision Making
Component and type: Component B report
Assessment title: Business Report
Assessment weighting: 50% of total module mark
Size or length of assessment: 2,500 words (no +/- 10% to be used)
Module learning outcomes assessed by this task:
1. Critically evaluate the role of financial objectives for different stakeholders
within emerging to well-developed financial markets
2. Evaluate reported financial information to support complex management
decision making problems
3. Identify the main types of finance available to individuals and organisations,
how they can be sourced and their appropriateness to different investment
decisions
4. Recognise and address ethical dilemmas and corporate social
esponsibility issues, applying ethical and organisational values to financial
situations and decisions
5. Evaluate the impact of the external environment on financial decision
making in organisations. The external environment includes legal, economic,
ethical, political, sociological and technological aspects
Completing your assessment

What am I required to do on this assessment?
You are required to obtain the latest annual report of a public limited company. This may be
a company you have worked for previously or would like to work for when you finish your
MBA. You want to find out as much information about the financial management decision
making style of the company from these reports.
You can obtain annual reports by going to the website of the company and looking under
‘investor relations. Alternatively, you can use the Financial Times annual reports service by
going to https:
www.orderannualreports.com/060/UI/GP/home.aspx?cp_2=P498 .
You only need to print off the three main accounts contained within the annual report. These
accounts are The Income Statement, Statement of Financial Position (or Balance Sheet) and
Statement of Cash Flow. Using the information contained within these accounts for the last
two years, and with reference to relevant theories studied within the module you are
equired to do the following:
1. Discuss the different long-term sources of finance available to companies and theories
that discuss their risk
eturn characteristics and optimum capital structure. With
eference to the accounts then discuss the long-term capital structure of the chosen
company and what this may indicate about the company’s attitude to risk. You may need
to refer to the specific note in the notes to the accounts to get detailed information on
this. Part of your answer to this question should include calculation of a suitable gearing
atio.
2. Discuss relevant working capital management theories. Then calculate suitable working
capital ratios and discuss how efficiently the company is managing its short-term sources
of finance.
3. Discuss the range of dividend policies available to companies, why certain companies may
choose certain policies and what sort of dividend policy the directors of the company
seem to be following and possible reasons for this.
4. Assess the profitability and risk of the company and how attractive it appears to be to
potential investors, in doing so make use of market structure analysis internal to the
industry. Your answer should include some evaluation of the type of external economic
environment of the company and the business models used.
You may want to look at information contained on the FAME/OSIRIS database for longer term
information. Please note the ratios calculated on FAME/OSIRIS can often be different to those
you will be calculating from the accounts for a number of reasons.
https:
www.orderannualreports.com/060/UI/GP/home.aspx?cp_2=P498
Your mark will reflect
i) The extent to which your essay demonstrates an understanding of underlying financial
and economic theories introduced in the module; and
ii) The degree to which you are able to apply such theories in a real-world context.
Please note: You are not being asked to undertake a financial analysis of the company. The
expected outcome of this assignment is a discussion of the different possible theories and
their application to the case study in order to identify the risk
eturn characteristics of the
company and the industry. You are expected to be able to demonstrate that you have read
and are able to synthesise academic literature.
Any corporate finance textbook will be helpful for background reading. However, you may
find the following textbooks particularly helpful.
 Corporate Financial Management by Glen Arnold
 Fundamentals of Corporate Finance by Richard Brealey
 Corporate Finance and Investment by Richard Pike and Bill Neale
 Corporate Finance: Principles and Practice by Denzil Watson and Antony Head
Higher marks will also be gained by co
ect referencing to seminal articles. Harvard system of
eferencing should be used.
Format
All work should be word processed in 12 point font Cali
i and single spaced.
Please use the following file format(s)………. (Word)
lease ensure that you provide the following details on the first page of your coursework:
 Student Number
 Module Name and Number
 Word Count
Where should I start?
Choose your company and then read the 19-page word document in study unit 8 on
lackboard entitled ‘How to answer the assignment.
What do I need to do to pass?
Marking Scheme for the Financial Decision-Making coursework
Student number:
Mark:
Area Marks
Section One:
 Discussion of the risk
eturn characteristics of internal equity,
loans, market debt, convertible debt and shares,
 Critical evaluation and synthesis of Pecking Order and Static
Trade Off theories.
 Discussion of the different sources of finance used by the
company and its application to the relevant theories.
 Calculation and evaluation of gearing ratio.
Marks out of 20
Section Two:
 Critical evaluation of aggressive to conservative working
capital management theories
 Calculation and evaluation of cu
ent ratio, liquid ratio,
inventory days, receivable days, payable days and cash
conversion cycle.
Marks out of 20.
Section Three:
 Critical evaluation and synthesis of at least dividend
i
elevance, Clientele, Bird in the Hand and Signalling theories.
 Application of the chosen company to the theories.
Marks out of 20
Section Four:
 Calculation and evaluation of suitable profitability ratios
 Evaluation of return in relation to risk through discussion and
application of Capital Asset Pricing Model.
 Discussion of the external economic environment of the
company either using PEST analysis or an analysis of its
particular business model.
Marks out of 30
Conclusion and presentation
Marks out of 10
Total mark out of 100
Marking Criteria
A+
(85-100%) Outstanding Pass; An outstanding piece of work of near
publishable quality
A (70-84%) Distinctive Pass; Excellent work that exceeds the requirement
of the module learning outcomes in all important dimensions
B (60-69%) Meritorious Pass; Very good work at M level – satisfied all
important requirements of assessment task and module
learning outcomes
C (50-59%) Pass; Good work at M level – student demonstrates
achievement against all learning outcomes but with some
limitations
D (45-49%) Marginal fail; Does not meet the required overall standard –
may have some good qualities but some learning outcomes not
met
E (0-44%) Fail; Contains significant flaws, few of the learning outcomes
for the module have been demonstrated
How do I achieve high marks in this assessment?
Your mark will reflect
i) The extent to which your essay demonstrates an understanding of underlying
financial and economic theories introduced in the module; and
ii) The degree to which you are able to apply such theories in a real-world context.
Please note: You are not being asked to undertake a financial analysis of the company. The
expected outcome of this assignment is a discussion of the different possible theories and
their application to the case study in order to identify the risk
eturn characteristics of the
company and the industry.
You are expected to be able to demonstrate that you have read and are able to synthesise
academic literature. However, citing lots of recent authors for basic statements does not
gain marks. You should only cite the seminal articles. You gain high marks by demonstrating
that you have read the literature and can critically evaluate in your own words.
How does the learning and teaching relate to the assessment?
This assessment relates to study units 4-8.
What additional resources may help me complete this assessment?
You need a good corporate finance textbook as suggested above.
Use the Business Source Complete database to find articles
Use the FAME (UK companies) or Osiris (Overseas companies) to find out more information
about the companies you are researching.
What do I do if I am concerned about completing this assessment?
Five-day late submission window (including University closure days) following the
submission deadline are granted for students who need additional time to complete their
work due to personal difficulties. Students will be automatically entitled to submit their
assessment without penalty within this grace period, there is no need for you to apply. For
further information please see : Late submission window - Assessment support options | UWE
Bristol
UWE Bristol offer a range of Assessment Support Options that you can explore through this
link, and both Academic Support and Wellbeing Support are available.
For further information, please see the Academic Survival Guide.
The module leaders cannot grant personal circumstances or extensions.
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/academic-information/personal-circumstances/late-submission-window
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/academic-information/personal-circumstances/late-submission-window
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/academic-information/personal-circumstances
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/academic-information/personal-circumstances
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/study-support/student-support-advisers
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/life/health-and-wellbeing/get-wellbeing-support
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/academic-information/academic-survival-guide
Support during the module
You can contact the module team via email, at the tutorial sessions and lectures. However,
no questions will be allowed after December 16th 2022 when your focus should be on writing
up the final report.
How do I avoid an Assessment Offence on this module?
Use the support above if you feel unable to submit your own work for this module.
The most common form of AO for this assessment is where students have copied information
from non-academic sources such as Wikipedia and Investopedia.
Please ensure you reference all sources used when developing your assessment, using the
UWE Harvard system. Failure to properly reference your work to original source material can
e grounds for the assessment offence of plagiarism and may result in failure of the
assessment or more serious implications. Further guidance on co
ect referencing is available
on UWE’s Study Skills referencing pages.
UWE’s Assessment Offences Policy outlines potential offences and it is your responsibility to
understand this policy and avoid potential offences. Details of what constitutes plagiarism
and how to avoid it can be found on UWE’s Study Skills pages about avoiding plagiarism.
Text-matching software (e.g. SafeAssign) is used to check every submission against other
submissions made at the same time, previous submissions to UWE and other universities, and
internet sources. We may also manually search for matches. When submitting your work,
you will be required to confirm that the work is your own.
It is an assessment offence to:
- copy work from any source, including your own previous assessments, and present it
as your own work for this assessment, or to provide your own work to others
- to work with others on the assessment in any way, or for anyone to make amends
on your work (including proof-readers, who may highlight issues but not edit the
work)
- change individual words but keep, essentially, the same sentences and/or structures
from other sources: this will be detected by text-matching software. Please write in
your own words and style to convey your own learning.
Marks and Feedback
Your assessment will be marked according to the following marking criteria.
You can use these to evaluate your own work before you submit.
Marking Scheme for the Financial Decision-Making coursework
Student number:
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/study-support/study-skills
eferencing/uwe-
istol-harvard
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/study-support/study-skills
eferencing
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/academic-information/assessments/assessment-offences
https:
www.uwe.ac.uk/study/study-support/study-skills
eading-and-writing/plagiarism
Mark:
Area Marks
Section One:
 Discussion of the risk
eturn characteristics of internal equity,
loans, market debt, convertible debt and shares,
 Critical evaluation and synthesis of Pecking Order and Static
Trade Off theories.
 Discussion of the different sources of finance used by the
company and its application to the relevant theories.
 Calculation and evaluation of gearing ratio.
Marks out of 20
Section Two:
 Critical evaluation of aggressive to conservative working
capital management theories
 Calculation and evaluation of cu
ent ratio, liquid ratio,
inventory days, receivable days, payable days and cash
conversion cycle.
Marks out of 20.
Section Three:
 Critical evaluation and synthesis of at least dividend
i
elevance, Clientele, Bird in the Hand and Signalling theories