ANALYSIS OF WALMART”?S 2013 ANNUAL REPORT

Assignment (20%)

Step 1: select the company

You are responsible for finding from an internet source the most recent Annual Report of any company (dig into the company s web site and do not rely on Yahoo finance or any other indirect source). Note that if a more recent annual report appears after you have made your selection you can stay with the one you started with.

Step 2: writing the assignment

You are required to include a copy of both the balance sheet and income statement without footnotes. Only these two statements should be copied, You are permitted to use your own charts and tables which are not included in the word count. You must use 1.5 line spacing and Times New Roman 12 and 1 (2.54cm) margins. The total length of your assignment may not exceed 12 pages including title page, tables and references.
The cover page of the assignment must indicate the course, name of the company/division, the period of the statement, complete company web site address on which the financial statements can be found, name that your group members are registered under and date of submission.

The appearance of the assignment will be worth 10% of the assignment grade. These marks will be awarded based on how well the document is organized and whether it is attractive to the reader.

The written report should follow these guidelines (note that your work should probably be performed following the opposite order to the parts below).

Part 1 Overall assessment (400-600 words) 20%
Make a clear recommendation to the investors and creditors of the company being analyzed: hold, sell or extend financial stake based on the information in the financial statements at the date when the financial statements were released.

Part 2 Analysis of company (750-1000 words) 40%
Summary of the history of the company or the division under analysis (include events of financial significance prior to the start of the periods covered by the financial statements you are analyzing).
A brief financial overview involving all financial statements and notes. Use ratios to be found in Chapter 15. Details of calculations must be given.
Identify the strategy of the company. This can be done in several ways, however the two more common are: 1) perform a 5-forces analysis to identify the position of the company or its strategic business units (Porter s 5-forces analysis: industry rivalry, negotiating power of suppliers, negotiating power of customers, threat of potential entrants and threats of substitute products or services); OR 2) perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis in order to identify the distinctive capabilities (and align them with the strategy and industry competitive position).
You should refer to part 3 rather than repeat information it contains.

Part 3 Analysis of the Income statement (500-750 words) 30%
For each section of the income statement being analyzed, provide a summary and give reasons for the changes observed. Identify challenges and opportunities that the company will face in the short and long terms.