Main Risks Of BMW: Research Project Report

Research project:
The purpose of this project is to apply what you have learned from the class readings and discussions and problems to a research situation. Please pick a non-US company that interests you and walk me through your company’s annual report. You are required to hand in a two-page research report. Specifically,
You can write your report using bullet points. It has to be professional looking, however, and needs to be informative.
1. Please locate the most recent annual report for your firm and find two risk factors that are mentioned regarding global operations. Most companies have this early on in their report (item 1 Risk Factors) and will talk about the economic environment in global markets, exchange rate challenges, foreign legal uncertainties, and international taxation. If you firm also files reports in the US, the report will be called 20-F (the equivalent to a 10-K for foreign filers) and you can find it on the sec.gov website. If your firm doesn’t file in the US, you can find their report on the company website. You need to be able to discuss the risk factors, e.g. what impact can they have on your firms operations, how can you minimize their impact, etc.?
2. Next, please find your firm’s conference call. Firms will discuss their financial information with investors, and I would like you to look through the conference call to find management’s discussion of global issues surrounding their business. Sometimes firms will discuss this on their own, and other times it will be prompted by analysts in the Q&A part of the conference call. You can find conference call transcripts on the - 5 -
Factiva database on the Pepperdine Library site. I posted a video in Session 2 how to access it. If you cannot find it on Factiva, you will most likely find it on the investor relations page of your firm’s website. You need to be able discuss management’s statements regarding international business issues. Do you think they are truthful, mentioned all foreign business issues, or did they forget something? Do they mention something that was not in the filings?
3. Please go back to your firm’s filings and gather the following accounting information: Accounting Framework (IFRS or something different), what is the major accounting policy choice they have to make? Please record a transaction using Debits and Credits of the major accounting policy transaction.
4. Please go back to your firm’s filings and find a discussion of foreign exchange rate exposure. We had several examples in class on how this could be discussed in the report. Does you firm have tables showing the impact of FX, or just a discussion? What do they say about the impact of FX on their business? Has it helped their numbers?
What is their functional currency? And what method do they use to translate their international segments into the local report?
5. Taxation issues. Is your company using tax shelters? How much is the effective rate vs. actual rate? Is your company in the news regarding the repatriation of foreign earning?
6. Go to the library website and access the database Thompson One Research or Value Line to find an analyst report for your firm. Analysts make recommendations on the investment potential of your firm to investors. They will often discuss risk factors and opportunities of global operations for your firm. I want you to put in your report what analysts have to say about your firm’s international operations. Again, you need to be able to discuss. If you firm is not on the database just Google a report. Also, please compute the ratios from the DuPont model and graph your firm’s ratios using the chart from the slides in Session 5.