finance report

Emily09
ProjectAssignment1.docx

Project Assignment 1

To Prof. Tirimaba Obonyo

FIN350

Yi Bai

Phase 1: Articulate the purpose and context of the analysis

The purpose of this analysis is to give a chance for me to analyze financial status of a company named Beacon Roofing Supply Inc., determine what financial statements of the company imply under numbers and make adjustment to the statements by knowledge I have learned in this class. Also, I need to compare financial statements of Beacon Roofing Supply Inc. to a similar size company’s. The intrinsic goal of those is improving my understanding and ability of analyzing financial statements. In this project, I would report and explain financials of two companies including profitability ratios, liquidity ratios, solvency ratios and trends over three years. Prof. Obonyo provided us two websites to retrieve companies’ data, which are “Securities and Exchange Commission”, “Morning Star”. Also, we can collect data and look over financial decisions from companies’ official websites. This project is due at the end of this semester, on December 10, so I have sufficient time to complete it with many details.

Phase 2: Collect data

To complete this project, I would retrieve financial data and information from 10Ks that provided by the SEC Edgar system and companies’ official websites. Balance sheets and income statements in the most recent three years are required. Besides, those statements are helpful for me to analyze and compare financial status of the two companies. Only analyzing financial data is not enough, I should also pay attention on big events and management’s analysis in the two companies and industry of building construction so that I can understand their financial status better.

Phase 3: Process data

I will process data from phase two to generate all ratios. Excel would be the best tool to exhibit data, results and differences between the two companies. To highlight the differences, constructing graphs or diagrams in Excel is helpful. Furthermore, I need to adjust financial statements and set up common-size statements, which are useful to make forecasts. Overall those data, I can learn about financial situation of the two companies in the last three years, such as their profitability, liquidity, solvency and leverage, and I would predict those ratios for next few years.

Phase 4: Analyze/interpret the processed data

I will interpret my output by establishing graphs that display how ratios changes during the most recent three years and analyzing reasons for the ratios. Also, the forecasts that depend on data would be interpreted so that investors can make better decisions.

Phase 5: Develop and communicate conclusions and recommendations

I will generate a project that answer questions in phase one. It states adjusted financial statements, common-size statements, ratios and forecasts of the two assigned companies. Moreover, comparison of the two companies would be shown and explained. I would give my recommendation relies on conclusions, such as whether to make an investment or grant credit.