COURSEWORK BRIEF

24BSP008

Accounting for Decision Making

CW1: Financial performance and position of an organisation in the sports industry.

Coursework Weight: 40%

Coursework Deadline: Friday 21st March 2025 at 11.00 a.m.

Coursework Task

This assignment is designed to assist you to understand and apply financial analysis concepts and techniques in the specific context of the sports industry.

Scenario

You are part of the accounting and finance department of an organisation operating in the sports industry, obvious examples being football, basketball, rugby, ice-hockey, tennis and cricket. The CEO has asked you to provide a detailed analysis on one area of the firm’s performance, based on the last three years of financial statements.

You should choose one of the following areas:

• Profitability (revenue, overheads margins, ROCE decomposition)

• Working capital (inventory, receivables, payables, unearned income)

• Capital structure (sources of financing and their appropriateness)

Some basic guidance points:

• You should ensure you choose a sports organisation where there have been some interesting changes in the specific area you are focused on.

• Students should note that if this is not their first attempt at this coursework assignment then the organisation chosen for the resit must be different from any previous attempts

• You will need to calculate the performance metrics relevant to the area you are examining to guide you with this analysis.

• Your analysis should be supplemented with any other information that you believe to be relevant. You should identify any limitations to, and constraints, on your analysis.

• You must not choose any of the companies discussed in detail in the lectures or seminars. If in any doubt, please ask the module tutor for guidance on your company selection.

Task

Prepare:

• A 1,000-word written report of your key findings focusing on the most important of them.

•   Your report should include the extracts from the financial statements that you used to calculate the metrics referred to in your report in the appendices.

•   The word limit does not include tables, references and metric workings. Tables, metrics and charts should be included in the report and not added in appendices, although the workings for the metrics should be in the appendices.

•   The report should be submitted through the on-line submission point on the module Learn page as a single PDF file.  Your submission will be checked within Turnitin to ensure that your work is original and does not overlap with other submissions.

Guidance Notes

Substance

Your statements and figures for the analysis detailed above should provide sufficient detail on research, assumptions and compilation of the figures produced such that the CEO will be able to see clearly that:

• The changes you have identified are clear as are the implications for the business going forward.

• Your analysis has been well researched.

• You have thought through potential issues and have made appropriate choices in terms of which metrics to use.

• You have understood the principles and methods covered in the module.

You can assume that the CEO has a reasonable level of financial literacy and that you do not need to explain common accounting terms, what each of the metrics shows or their definitions.

Metrics

You can use the following definitions if helpful. Note no attribution is needed nor do you need to repeat these widely used definitions in your report.

Working capital activity metrics

•    Inventory days = inventory /cost-of-sales x 365

•    Days-sales-outstanding = trade receivables / revenue x 365 [revenue from credit sales]

•    Days-purchases-outstanding = Trade payables / cost-of-sales x 365

Derived balance sheet values

•   Working capital = current assets   current liabilities

•   Capital employed = non-current liabilities +owners  equity = working capital +non-current assets = Operating assets

Financing metrics

• Current ratio = current assets / current liabilities

•    Debt to equity = Total debt/Shareholders  funds

Margins

•    Gross margin = gross profit / revenue

•   Operating margin = profit before interest and tax (PBIT) / revenues = Gross margin - overheads margin

•    Net margin = profit after tax / revenue

Profitability

•    Return on capital employed = PBIT / capital employed = asset turnover x operating margin

•    Return on equity = profit after tax / owners  equity = net profit margin x asset turnover

Other Information

All marks are provisional until ratified by the formal examination boards.

You need to ensure you back up your coursework and any other important documents. Information on data storage can be found here:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/it/student/storage/

Losing your work through technical failure is not a valid reason for a Mitigating Circumstances claim or a coursework extension request.

If you have any other problems with meeting the deadline for this coursework you may wish to request a 48-hour extension and/or submit a Mitigating Circumstances claim. This must be requested in advance via:

Coursework Extension Link:https://www.lboro.ac.uk/students/handbook/exams/extensions/

Mitigating Circumstances Link:https://www.lboro.ac.uk/students/handbook/exams/mitigating- circumstances/

Word Count and Format

The word count guide for the document is not more than 1,000 words. Please state the word count on the first page of your assignment. As stated above, the word limit does not include tables, references and metric workings. Tables, metrics and charts should be included  in the report and not added in appendices, although the workings for the metrics should be in appendices.

All material (academic and other) that you cite should be properly referenced in the text and in the reference list (in Harvard style) at the end of your report.

Coursework Marking Rubric

Students’ work will be assessed as follows:

Written Report                                 100%

Please see the rubric at the end of this coursework brief for further details of the criteria against which you will be assessed, and descriptors of performance on the coursework for each assessment criterion.