ASSIGNMENT SPECIFICATIONS

1. Assignment Tasks 

This assignment task is a written report that include 3 parts:

Part 1: Reflective journal of one assigned topic among 9 first topics of the course.

Part 2: Fact finding of securities market in Australia.

Part 3: Capital Budgeting and Project Evaluation.

Please also note: group assignment for HI5002 is DIFFERENT every trimester. Attempt to submit a PREVIOUS TRIMESTER ASSIGNMENT or A WRONG ASSIGNMENT will be graded as ZERO (0) mark

without any consideration for resubmission. Using SECONDARY DATA (researches done by others) for Reflective Journal in Part 1 and Case Study in Part 3 is not recommended and will be penalised. References in Part 2 should be provided as instructed in Submission Guidelines.

II. Contribution of group members

Each group needs to ensure that members are equally contribute in group work (10% each for a four- member group). Non-responding and non-contributing members need to be reported by groups to Unit Coordinator for removal from the groups before week 10.

Percentage of contribution and tasks (for example: Part 1. Question 1 and 2) done by each group member must be agreed by all group members and specified clearly in the table of Information for HI5002 Group Assignment T2 2022 Marking (below).

Marks for each group member will be awarded by markers in accordance with percentage of contribution and quality of the parts done by that member.

III. Assignment structure and questions

The assignment should cover the structure and contents described below.

ASSIGNMENT COVERPAGE

Please use the provided template

Information for HI5002 Group Assignment T2 2022 Marking:

(Please fill in this table and put it right before Introduction part in your assignment. It is important for marking, penalty is applied for missing information) 

Introduction

A brief introduction of your group’s work: the purpose of assignment, key findings and structure of the assignment (not more than 150 words)

Part 1. Reflective journal of a selected topic among 9 first topics of the course (13 marks)

Your group is required to write a reflective journal of what you had learnt in a tutorial session that covers one assigned topic among 9 first topics of HI5002 course. Once your groups are formed on Black Board, you need to contact HI5002 Unit Coordinator to get the topic assigned to your groups. The following requirements must be met for this Reflective Journal to be marked:

1) Correct name of the assigned topic as per syllabus, lectures and tutorials must be provided

2) Correct time, date and name of the lecturer who delivered the tutorial session should be provided

3) Evidence of your discussion with HI5002 Unit Coordinator on the assigned topic for Part 1. Reflective Journal: screen shots of email exchanges submitted in an appendix to your assignment.

To complete the reflective journal, answer the following reflective questions:

Reflective questions:

Question 1: What are the financial concepts you have learnt in the session? Briefly explain the concepts? (please note that only list the financial concepts discussed in the interactive tutorial session, not all the financial concepts discussed in the recorded lecture) (3 marks)

Question 2: What are the important issues your lecturer reminded you to note down and pay your special attention to regarding the financial concepts/formulas/calculations/skills/techniques you have learnt in that session? (5 marks)

Question 3: How many practice questions did you work on the class with your lecturer? Briefly summarize the content of that questions and what you have done with your lecturer in practicing with those questions. What are the problems did you encounter when you worked on that practice questions? (3 marks)

Question 4: How can you potentially apply what you have learnt in that class in your real life? (2 marks)

Part 2. Fact finding of securities market in Australia (10 marks)

You are required to go to Online Portals of ASX and ASIC, explore the data and information in the portals and perform the following tasks:

Task 1. Search for guidance of ASX on securities listing and answer the questions assigned to your groups. Students are required to attend the tutorial session in week 9 to get the guidance from lecturers about which questions they need to answer in this Part. This information will not be available in tutorial solutions (3 marks).

Task2:Search for guidance of ASX on ASX participants and answer two questions assigned to your group. Students are required to attend the tutorial session in week 9 to know what are the questions you need to answer in this Task. This information will not be available in tutorial solutions. (3 marks).

Task3:Search for information in the ASIC Portal for Finance Professional and answer the questions assigned to your group. Students are required to attend tutorial session in week 9 to get the guidance from lecturers about the questions your group will need to answer in this Task.This information will not be available in tutorial solutions. (2 marks)

Task 4: Search for information in the ASIC Portal for Consumers and answer the questions assigned to your group. Students are required to attend tutorial session in week 9 to get the guidance from lecturers about the questions your group will need to answer in this Task. This information will not be available in tutorial solutions. (2 marks)

Note that these are fact finding questions and all the information need to be taken from the provided sources (ASX and ASIC websites). Students need to explore data and information in the websites to get necessary inputs and use your own wordings to rephrase the facts, then make a proper intext citation and references to the ASX and ASIC sources (See the guideline of Adapted Harvard Referencing at the end of assignment instructions). High similarity index showing the source of ASX with proper references is FINE but copy and paste the content of the courses is plagiarism.

Links of websites for your fact finding are: Australia Stock Exchange: www.asx.com.au and Australian Securities and Investment Commission: https://asic.gov.au/.

Part 3: Capital Budgeting and Project Evaluation (15 marks)

3.1. Capital Budgeting Decision Making (7 marks)

Case Study: Assume that your group is working Financial Team of a seafood exports company. Your company is considering to buy a new machinery for canning of seafood products. Two options of machinery are recommended by your company suppliers. The two options that can generate similar annual revenue but incur different initial investments and annual expenses. Your company’s Management Board requested your financial team to recommend a project evaluation method and perform it to select one of the options. The table below shows the estimated cash flows available for each option:

You are required to write a short report to the company’s Management:

1) To select a relevant method among five investment criteria of Net Present Value (NPV), Equivalent Annual Cost (EAC), profitability Index (PI), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Simple Payback Period, and Discounted Payback Period for this project, given the discount rate applied for all project is xxx% (to be provided later) and the company’s benchmark of payback is maximum 3 years. Your recommendation must include your justification on why you choose the specific method based on its pros and cons compared to other methods, the BOM’s concern of efficiency and the financial circumstance of the company. (2 marks)

2) To perform the selected method and present the outcome of your project evaluation and recommend the Option A or B should the company choose for this project. Your justification must include calculation steps and numerical outcomes. (5 marks)

Students are compulsorily required to attend tutorial session in week 8 and week 9 to know how to work on these capital budgeting questions with correct discount rate, terminologies, templates and calculations. Details of explanation will not be provided in tutorial solution

3.2. Risk Analysis and Project Evaluation: NPV Scenario Analysis (8 marks)

Case Study: Your company needs to take another capital budgeting consideration regarding expansion of seafood product market. Your Financial Team was assigned the job to evaluate the potential risks of a new project. In the new project, the company will launch a new product line that is expected to boost the sales by 10%. The new project is expected to generate an annual sale of 3,500,000 units for an average price of $3.50 per unit for 5 years. The new investment project requires your company to buy a new assembly line with initial cost of $1,250,000, a residual value of $250,000 at the end of the project. The company will need to add $160,000 in working capital which is expected to be fully retrieved at the end of the project. Other information is available below:

Depreciation method: straight line

Variable cost per unit: $1.2

Cash fixed costs per year: $50,000

Corporate marginal tax: 30%

Discount rate: xxx% (discount rate to be provided later)

Your Finance Department conducted some economics forecast and estimated that in the coming time, post-Covid-19 pandemic and Russia- Ukraine war economic conditions may cause uncertainty in canned seafood market demand. You Finance Department decides to do a scenario analysis to determine the sensitivity of the project’s NPV to different scenarios.

Required:Work on two scenarios corresponding to the worst- and best-case outcomes that are defined in terms of the estimated values for each value driver of the project. You need to provide your results in (a) relevant tables:

Worst case: The Covid-19 pandemic is totally over. People despise canned foods as it reminds them of eating home alone under lockdowns and restriction. Your company’s new canned seafood product is therefore subject to a decrease in market demand. More expensive energy due to Russia- Ukraine war adds another pressure on production. The unfavourable economic condition causes: Unit sales decrease by 10%; price per unit decreases by 10%; variable cost per unit increases by 10

%; cash fixed cost per year increases by 10%

Best case: The pandemic is gone. However, people are still concerned about its coming back and the natural disasters such as floods in Queensland and New South Wales in early 2022. They developed the habit to buy canned foods as a compulsory part of their emergency survival kits. Hence a strong market demand on your company’s new canned seafood product is maintained. Russia- Ukraine war is over after negotiations and the shortage of energy no longer persists. The favourable economic condition makes: Unit sales increase by 10%; price per unit increases by 10%; variable cost per unit decreases by 10%; cash fixed cost per year decreases by 10%.

Based on the scenario analysis outcome, draw relevant conclusion about project NPV’s sensitivity.

Note: Each group will work with different discount rate. Students are required to attend online interactive tutorial in week 9 to know discount rate assigned to your group. This information will not be available in week 9 tutorial solution.

Conclusion

Summarize / Reflection the outcomes of your group’s works (not more than 150 words)

Assignment Preparation guideline/ Important Note: Students are required to attend Tutorial Sessions Week 8 (topic 6) and Week 9 (Topic 7) for guidance and inputs to answer the questions in Part 1 and Part 2, and discount rates and training on how to work with correct capital budgeting technique, proper format, structure, calculation tables and terminologies in Part 3. Assignments with different data, information, templates, terminologies and calculations from the solution templates and guidance provided to you in the tutorial sessions will be investigated as suspected academic misconduct.

Guidelines – Adapted Harvard Referencing

1. Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources which provide full text access to the

source’s content for lecturers and markers.

1. The Reference list should be located on a separate page at the end of the assignment and titled: References.
2. It should include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged alphabetically A-Z by author surname. In addition, it MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited reference source.

For example;

P Hawking, B McCarthy, A Stein (2004), Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf

1. All assignments will require additional in-text reference details which will consist of the surname of the author/authors or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page number of contents, paragraph where the content can be found.

For example;

“The company decided to implement an enterprise wide data warehouse business

intelligence strategies (Hawking et al, 2004, p3(4)).”

Non-Adherence to Referencing Guidelines

Where students do not follow the above guidelines:

1. Students who submit assignments which do not comply with the guidelines will be asked to resubmit their assignments.
2. Late penalties will apply, as per the Student Handbook each day, after the student/s have been notified of the resubmission requirements.
3. Students who comply with guidelines but the citations are “fake” will be reported for academic misconduct.

Marking criteria