Business Report: Critical Analysis in the Real World

ASSESSMENT DETAIL
The assessment components are as follows:
Assignment: Business Report
Details: “Critical Analysis in the Real World”
Task
You are an analyst for Ethical Investments, a company specialising in investing long-term in companies, which are demonstrated to have consistently high business performance, good corporate governance and environmentally friendly practices. You are to undertake research into the prospects of three companies.

Choose any threecompanies from the list of eight companies below. They range across a number of industries:
FOSTER’S GROUP LIMITED
WOOLWORTHS LIMITED
TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED
SONIC HEALTHCARE LIMITED
COCA-COLA AMATIL LIMITED
OIL SEARCH LIMITED
QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED
RIO TINTO LIMITED
: with the aim of recommending a single company in which to invest $500,000. You are to provide a business report of a maximum of 3000 words, (you are not to exceed 3300 words), which analyses the relative merits of these companies and provides a reasoned recommendation for the selection of one of these three.

You should analyse the companies
in terms of their:
(i) Financial performance and prospects
(ii) Corporate governance performance
(iii) Environmental protection credentials
(iv) Contextual factors (e.g. legal/political issues, global or regional economic pressures, etc.)
Your report must include:
1. Executive Summary (one page only) (maximum 500 words)
2. Introduction, which must include a statement of the purpose of the report. Since your recommendation is to be based on multiple, potentially conflicting, criteria (financial merit andenvironmental merit), you should also include an explanation of how you are going to use these criteria in reaching your decision (for example, only one criterion might be applied as a hurdle requirement, or both criteria might be equally important in your final decision, etc).
Your introduction must also include an explanation of the scope of the report, and your methodology (how you obtained your data, and whether it was primary or secondary data).
3. Body (Discussion), which must include a research-based comparative critical analysis of the three companies based on criteria (i) – (iv). Remember, you should be aiming to present an argument as to why one of these three is better than the other two and hence should be chosen.
4. Conclusion/Recommendation, which must clearly state the action to be taken and summarise the reasons for the final choice. (one page only) (maximum 500 words)
5. Reference List, Tables, Figures and Diagrams (not include in the word count)
In undertaking this task, you will not be expected to use sophisticated analysis tools. It is sufficientif you provide common-sense analysis of the prospects of the companies against the givencriteria, using concepts and principles discussed in this unit.