Group Project – Accounting 220 –Finance

Group Project – Accounting 220 –Finance

The project for Acc220 will evaluate the financial information of WalMart and Target Corporations. The links to the financial statements will be provided for you. You will need to access the internet to research additional information on the firms.
The project is divided into 3 sections. Part 1 will be submitted at the end of Week 3, Part 2 will be submitted at the end of Week 5 and Part 3 (along with Parts 1 and 2) will be submitted on Sunday of Week 7. The entire project will be graded by the instructor at the end of the final submission in week 7 and one grade will be assigned for the entire project. The project will count for 17.5% of your overall course grade. Unless you receive permission from the instructor to delay the submission, failure to turn in any part of the project by the due date may result in a significantly lower grade, including a grade of zero, for the part involved.
A group leader must be selected for each part – this shares the load throughout the group. The group leader for Part 1 will combine all the materials from the group members and submit part 1 of the project in Week 3. The group leader for Part 2 will submit the project in Week 5 and the group leader for Part 3 will submit the entire project (Parts 1, 2, and 3) in Week 7.
Each group member is required to participate in the discussion board and file exchange on a weekly basis. The minimum expectation of each member is providing a minimum of 3 posts per week to the discussion and submitting one file to the file exchange. Each group determines how to split the work.
Grade Information
Content – 50% A quality report will have correct ratio calculations and conclusions on the analysis. Any assumptions, if made, should be spelled out clearly.
Editing – 10% A quality report will be free of any spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors. Sentences and paragraphs will be clear, concise, and factually correct. Ratios will be expressed as numbers or percentages, depending on what is appropriate, as is shown in the textbook. Note that not all ratios are shown as percentages.
Participation – 40% Group participation includes providing substantive content in the discussion board on a minimum of three different days of the week and actively involved in the workload.
Company Basics and Financial Ratios – Part 3
Question 1
Locate the liabilities section of the balance sheet of both firms.
a.) For the most current year, what percent of the liabilities are short-term liabilities? Which firm has the greatest percentage of short-term liabilities?
b.) For the most current year, what percent of the liabilities are long-term liabilities? Which firm has the greatest percentage of long-term liabilities?
c.) Review the notes to the financial statements and describe the long-term debt amounts, terms and maturity dates for each company.
d.) What percent of each company’s assets is financed by debt?
Question 2
1. How many shares of common stock are currently outstanding?
2. How many shares of preferred stock are currently outstanding?
3. When was the last shareholders’ meeting?
Question 3
a. Looking at the last 3 years, what were the annual dividends paid to shareholders for common stock? For preferred stock?
b. Determine the last dividend that was paid. What was the ex-dividend date? The stockholder of record date? The actual payment date?
c. Review the payout ratio over a 3-year time period. What is the payment pattern? What does this tell you about the firm in the life-cycle?

Question 4
a. What percent of the shares of institutional investors?
b. Review the notes to the financial statements – what influence do these investors have on the firm?
c. Are any of the board of directors an institutional investor?

Wal-Mart

Target
Question 5
a.) How many board of directors are there? How many are employees? Who has served the longest? The shortest?

Wal-Mart

Target

Question 7

a. Briefly, discuss the international community that each firm operates? What percent of revenues come from international operations?
b. How many countries is each firm located?
Wal-Mart
Target

Question 7
Provide an overall analysis of each company. Which company appears financially stronger? Support your analysis.

Wal-Mart

Target