Introduction
The assessment of the Corporate Finance elective is by 100% individual assignment. The assignment comprises an individual written report providing you with the opportunity to apply the theories, models and frameworks studied in this elective to a practical organizational issue, challenge or opportunity.
Your assignment is to be based on an analysis and evaluation of a corporate finance topic of your choice. The issue, challenge or opportunity you choose should be based on one or more of the following topics:
• mergers and acquisitions
• business valuation
• sources of finance
• dividend policy
• capital structure
• financial risk management
You need to choose an organisation(s) on which to carry out your analysis and evaluation. You may wish to investigate a company that you have worked for or would like to work for, or the organisation that you selected for your Financial Management assignment or a completely new organisation.
Purpose of the assignment
The assignment is designed to allow you to demonstrate your ability to:
• select and apply theories, models and frameworks to a specific organisational context in order to develop a critical analysis of the situation
• critically describe, analyse and evaluate corporate finance decisions using appropriate models and frameworks from the elective, supported by suitable evidence
• use your analysis to identify and make recommendations that will address the chosen issue/challenge and/or respond to the opportunity
Throughout the assignment your analysis should draw upon appropriate material from the elective, as well as relevant additional sources (correctly referenced).
Assignment brief
Identify and analyse an issue, challenge or opportunity related to corporate finance within an organisation (s). The analysis should lead to actionable recommendations to address the chosen issue/challenge or to respond to the opportunity along with a Corporate Finance elective: Assignment 2 © Henley Business School, August 2019 critical review of the implications of your recommendations for the theory and practice of corporate finance.
The report should consist of five elements:
• Executive summary
• Introduction (10% of the marks)
• Part 1: Analysis of a selected issue, challenge or opportunity affecting corporate finance within an organisation (50% of the marks)
• Part 2: Actionable recommendations based on your analysis in Part 1 to address the issue, challenge or to respond to the opportunity along with a critical review of the implications for the theory and practice of corporate finance (30% of the marks)
• Reflection (10%)
Executive summary
You should provide a concise executive summary at the front of your assignment report, which should provide a high-level summary of your analysis of the issue, challenge or opportunity, the resulting recommendations and their implications for the theory and practice of corporate finance. This should be no longer than one page and will not be part of the word count.
Introduction (10% of marks)
In this section of your assignment you should introduce the issue, challenge or opportunity that is the focus of your assignment and briefly describe the context, including:
• an overview of the organisation in which the issue/opportunity is located
• an overview of the relevant contextual factors relating to the issue that you intend to analyse
Part 1: Analysis of selected issue (50% of marks)
In Part 1 you should analyse the chosen issue, challenge or opportunity using selected theories, models and frameworks from the elective course material, supported by appropriate evidential data. Your analysis should lead into your recommendations in Part 2.
Part 2: Recommendations and implications (30% of marks)
Present actionable recommendations that will address the issue/challenge or respond to the opportunity. Your recommendations must clearly be grounded in your analysis E-CF-AQ-8A © Henley Business School, August 2019 3 in Part 1. You should include a critical review of the implications of your analysis for the theory and practice of corporate finance.
Reflection (10% of marks)
To demonstrate your broader understanding and learning from studying the Corporate Finance elective, you are required to include a reflective component to your assignment. How has study of the Corporate Finance elective influenced your thinking about and your approach to business? How might you use your learning from the Corporate Finance elective in the future?
Assignment marking
The individual report forms 100% of the mark for the assessment of the Corporate Finance elective. The assessment criteria are shown at Appendix 1.
Assignment preparation guidance
In preparing your assignment you should keep the following points in mind. Your assignment must demonstrate:
• Your understanding of the underpinning theories and the application of the course material to the issue that you are presenting. You must reference concepts, theories and course materials fully, using the required citation standard at the point of use in the report, providing full source details in a references section at the end following the Harvard standard.
• Your ability to select appropriate examples from real life to illustrate the use of the theories and frameworks you have studied and to inform your analyses. It will be helpful for you if you are able to access actual data from your organisation to illustrate the points made.
Suggested approach
Do not wait until you have finished working through the elective before starting to think about your assignment. The suggested approach is to identify a potential topic (or selection of topics) towards the start of your study and to refine your thinking as you progress.
General guidance
Your assignment must show concisely that you can apply what you have studied in the elective. You will be expected to demonstrate the use of concepts, tools and methods of analysis described in the elective to a ‘real-world’ issue, drawing as appropriate on the elective material that you have studied.
Models/frameworks should be used in order to analyse the key dimensions of the situation being investigated. Be selective; a smaller number of well-chosen models will carry more weight than using lots of models with little relevance to the situation.
Remember you are working to a word limit. Descriptive or narrative accounts and lengthy discussion of theory with little supporting data and not applied to the chosen scenario are discouraged. Your assignment requires careful analysis of relevant issues. A well-structured presentation in the form of a report, clearly demonstrating the critical application of theory, models and frameworks to the chosen problem is the expected format.
All tables and graphics should be captioned and referred to in the main body of the text. Referencing should use the Harvard referencing system.
Word count
Your assignment should be 3,000 words in length.
Word count will comprise all text including:
• executive summary (if required)
• footnotes/endnotes
• all text in tables, diagrams etc The word count should not include:
• the text on the cover page (the cover page should include your name, student ID number, the title of the report, the title of the module and word-count statement)
• table of contents (if required)
• reference list and any appendices
Assignments may not exceed the specified word count by more than 20% or fall short of it by more than 10%. A student should not benefit from submitting a piece of work that greatly exceeds the specified length (over 20% of the specified limit). A marker is not obliged to read beyond the word limit, and a mark based on the work up to the word limit will be awarded. Assignments that fall short of the specified word count by more than 10% will be marked as submitted, sustaining any potential limitations due to shorter content.
Use of appendices
You are advised to be cautious when including appendices in assignments. There are no specific criteria for marking or mark allocation available for appendices, so the assessment process focuses on the appropriate use of appendices.
When deciding whether, or not, to include appendices, consider the following points:
• Appendices should add value or detail to the discussion and analysis undertaken in the main body of the assignment.
• They offer programme members the opportunity to give greater relevant and appropriate detail to support the main analysis and discussion.
• Models, theory and discussion that demonstrate critical evaluation and analysis of issues related to the module being assessed should always be presented within the main body of the text. This discussion should make sense without referring to the appendices. Using a bullet point summary in the text (which does not constitute analysis) and putting the detailed analysis in the appendices is not acceptable practice and could result in failure.
• The inclusion of appendices should not be viewed as an opportunity to include anything that cannot fit in the word count.
• Assignments that make excessive use of appendices suggest inappropriate use. As a guide, we would not normally expect appendices to exceed one third of the length of the assignment.
• Appendices should always be referenced at the appropriate point within the discussion in the main body of the text.
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