07 36330 Ethics, Governance and Regulation in Treasury
Individual assignment
This individual assignment constitutes 70% of the overall mark for this module and details of the assessment are provided below.
1. The questions required for the individual assignment:
Section A:
Critically discuss the corporate governance issues related to female directors and board size and demonstrate their impact on firm performance using data downloaded from the CSMAR database. Compare your empirical results with two other studies from the literature looking into similar corporate governance issues for different markets.
The sample firms need to be in the same industry/industries and listed on the same stock exchange. The minimum number of sample firms is 50. You are required to provide a table of summary statistics and a table of baseline regression results. (50%)
Section B: Undertaking research for your chosen firm, you are required to answer the following questions:
§ Q1) Treasury Operations - what areas of treasury operations would appear to be of highest priority for the company? Consider at least 3 measures to evaluate the performance of the treasury function. (15%)
§ Q2) IT Systems – what type of IT system does the company use to manage its treasury operations? Would you recommend the company to use a different type of IT system? (13%)
§ Q3) Ethics – explain the extent to which you think the company acts ethically. How would you expect the company’s treasury function to reflect this ethical approach? What changes would you make to improve this area and why? (12%)
§ Q4) Risk Management - evaluate the treasury policy paying particular attention to foreign exchange exposure. (10%)
Note 1. The company you choose MUST:
a) Be a non-financial firm (i.e., Do not choose banks, insurance companies, funds etc).
b) Be listed on the London Stock Exchange, whose information can be found at different databases or media easily.
It can be in ANY industry and of any size, not necessary to be FT100, but it must be a firm you are interested in.
Note 2. Undertaking research for the chosen firm
You need to investigate your chosen firm. The more you invest into this NOW the better your assignment will be. Things to look at are:
§ The website of your chosen firm
§ The annual report and accounts (and not just the most recent one)
§ Newspaper websites – e.g. The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, The Times, Quality newspapers not tabloid, e.g. the Daily Mail
§ Reuters websites; also, stockbrokers e.g., Hargreaves Lansdown
§ Academic Journals –your chosen organisation may have been a case study in a piece of research. Search the library / google scholar and see if there are any relevant research. If there are, read them!
Note 3. Information sources for collecting annual reports, news, company official announcements etc.
a) Bloomberg,
b) File Expert (or called Perfect Information Navigator),
c) News & Events of Thomson One Banker,
d) Financial Times database. These are for collecting for annual reports, news, company official announcements etc.,
e) Bloomberg is located at Alan Walters Building Computing Lab.
2. The quality of your essay
There are mark bands for the quality of your essay so make sure that:
§ You proofread it to ensure correct spelling and grammar
§ Referencing is done accurately and there is no chance of plagiarism
§ You structure your essay so it ‘tells a story’. Use the questions / topics as subheadings to help you lead the reader through your work. Remember to add an introduction and conclusion to the essay.
3. Suggestions
Remember to use working frameworks, literature and publications to support your point of view. For this question I would expect you to refer to some of the following:
§ Journal articles or textbooks
§ Regulators e.g., Financial Conduct Authority, Bank of England
§ UK Corporate Governance Code
§ Association of Corporate Treasurers
§ And others from the reading list and on Canvas…
This MUST be referenced correctly!
4. Submission
§ Please submit the individual assignment on Canvas by 12 noon (UK Time GMT) 24th April 2024 (NB penalties of -5 marks per day or part of a day late)
§ Upload Assignments to the submission box “36330 Individual Assignment - Due 12.00 noon 24th April 2024” which can be found via the “Assignments” tab of the 36330 LM Ethics, Governance & Regulation in Treasury Canvas page.
5. Presentation
Assignments should not exceed 3,000 words in length (this word limit is for the main text only. It excludes references, tables or figures and appendices). Note that marks will be awarded throughout for style. and presentation of work. Formal reporting standard is required.