ACFI107 Introduction to Accounting and Finance
University of Liverpool Management School
2024/25

1 Assignment overview

You and your team are employed as business research analysts at Salah & Co. Wealth Management. Mr. Salah is currently looking for sound investment opportunities in the United Kingdom which he could recommend to a new high-profile client, Dr. Felicity Smoke. The Smoke family have a keen interest in the telecommunication industry and are seeking to invest in a telecommunication company that will grow their existing portfolio.

To help her, your team has to produce an in-depth report on BT group (BT.A) a company that she assigned to you, which will allow her to gain a better understanding of its business, the environment in which it operates, and its financial health and recent performance. The firm you should use as a benchmark in your analysis of its financial health and performance is Vodafone (VOD). Dr. Smoke is particularly keen to find out whether your team would recommend taking a long position in BT (i.e. investing in it) or a short position in it (i.e. betting against it).

The main body of your report must contain no fewer than 1,400 but no more than 1,500 words. Please refer to subsection 3.1 of this document for further information on the expected structure of your report and to subsection 3.2.1 for further details of the report’s contents that are included in the word count and subject to the limit above.

You will find the names of your team’s other members in the ACFI107 Coursework Groups file available on Canvas.

The deadline for submitting your report is 12 noon on Monday, 12th May 2025. You are required to submit a single PDF or Microsoft Word file with the final version of your report via Turnitin.

2 Assessment marking criteria

Your report will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Coherence of the report’s structure, writing and presentation. Consistent referencing throughout the report. Good use of English, adhering to academic writing conventions.

The extent to which the report logically and coherently examines the subject with sufficient breadth and depth. Quality of analysis generated and of evidence presented in support of major points or conclusions.

3. Quality of research and use of sources:

Application of theoretical understanding to support analysis. Comprehensiveness and relevance of the cited information sources. Quality and relevance of data analysed. Clarity and consistency of the conclusions with the data and the reported findings.

Further information

2.1 Structure of the report

Your report should be structured and presented as follows:

The title page should include the following items, in the order listed:

2. Table of contents:

This should be an accurate listing of the main sections of the report, with page numbers and any sub-sectioning numbers. The page numbers in your report must match those in the table of contents.

3. Executive summary:

This should be a concise (no more than 250 words) summary of the report, including its principal findings.

This section should outline the subject of your report, the scope of your analysis and its broader context, as well as your key findings.

5. Main body of information and findings:

(b) Current operating environment: a discussion of the key market, economic, and global events in the last few (no more than ten) years that have affected the firm’s business prospects;

(c) Peer comparison of financial health and performance: data-driven assessment of the firm’s liquidity, solvency, profitability, and financial performance over the past ten years vis-`a - vis the benchmark firm (Vodafone), supported by appropriate graphs and table;

(d) Your team’s investment recommendation: a clear statement whether your team recommends investing in or betting against the assigned firm, based on the analysis and findings reported in parts (a) - (c) above.

All points must be supported by evidence to illustrate and justify your findings and corroborated by appropriately referenced sources.

The material should be sequenced in a logical manner and the organisation of the report should be made explicit to the reader by means of headings and sub-headings and appropriate use of introductions and directions as a guide to the information presented.

6. Conclusions:

This section should include a restatement of the purpose and specific objectives of the report followed by a summary of your principal points from its main body.

The conclusion should not be used to introduce any new information.

This list should include all the references used in the report (books, journal articles, newspaper articles, internet sources, etc.) presented in alphabetical order.

2.2 Presentation of the report

The main body of the report (contents included in the introduction, main body of infor mation and findings, and conclusions) should be between 1,400 and 1,500 words. Graphs and tables count as word-equivalent. Please note that you may be penalised if you exceed this word limit.

The following are not included in the word count:

2.2.2 Formatting requirements

The report should be typed on A4 paper and should be one-and-a-half- or double-spaced, with a 2.5cm left and right margin and 2.75cm top and bottom margins. Use a standard font in a readable font size, such as Times New Roman, 12pt. The main body of text should be fully justified.

All pages, with the exception of the title page, should be numbered. The pages containing the table of contents and the executive summary should be consecutively numbered with lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, etc.). The main body of the report, beginning with the introduction and including all remaining sections and bibliography should be consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.). Page numbers should be located at the bottom of the page.

The report should be organised into sections and subsections. The main sections of the report should be Introduction, Firm profile, Operating environment, Financial health and performance analysis, Investment recommendation, and Conclusions. Please note that the individual sections do not necessarily have to have these exact titles. All paragraphs should be appropriately sized and formatted consistently throughout the manuscript.

Section and subsection headings should be consecutively numbered and have the following format:

Any figures or tables presented within the report should be numbered and feature an informative title above the figure or table. The titles should be single-spaced and presented in a smaller font size, 10pt.

2.2.3 Style guidelines

You can assume that the reader of the report is a business professional and is familiar7 with technical finance terms and ratio definitions. Consequently, you do not need to define those terms or provide ratio equations in your report.

Keep your writing formal. Avoid emotive language, slang, and contractions: can’t / don’t / wouldn’t, etc. should be written as cannot / do not / would not. Remain emotionally neutral and write as a dispassionate, objective onlooker.

Avoid sweeping generalisations. Be specific and always provide references to support the point you want to make. Your language should be attentive to the fact that the issues you discuss may be subjects of ongoing debate. Try to keep track of what your reader knows and does not know, what you have explained and what you have not.

Use active tense and avoid passive phrases such as “ratios were constructed as follows...”.

Take ownership of your work and use the pronoun “we”, i.e. “we construct the ratios as follows...”. Conversely, you can write ”Figure 1 shows the firm’s current and quick ratios between 2015 and 2020”rather than “The firm’s current and quick ratios between 2015 and 2020 are shown in Figure 1”.

Write small numbers out in words but larger number in figures, e.g. five years, 5,000 years.

When using abbreviations, it is good practice to give the full details and put the abbreviated form in brackets the first time you mention it, and then subsequent mentions can just use the abbreviation. For example, first reference: “Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR)”; any subsequent reference: “BVAR”.

2.3 Additional advice

2. Make good use of the resources (access to The Financial Times or The Economist) and databases (particularly FAME) available through the University’s Library. The following website provides a guide to all library resources that may be relevant to your project: https://libguides.liverpool.ac.uk/management-school/home.

6. Do not copy and paste screenshots of software outputs (graphs, results tables, etc.) into your report. Save the graphs you create as separate JPEG, PNG, or PDF files and include those in your report. Replicate any tables in the word processor you use and ensure that they are easy to read.

7. Make sure to label the axes of your figures and, if they feature more than one line, add a data legend. Well-presented figures will help communicate your ideas, whereas bad figures will only confuse your readers.