- Market Investment Co is an investment company. The company has major investments in several
Australian public companies, one of which is Santos Limited, an Australian resource company
with activities in the gas, oil and resources industry. The accountant of the Market
Investment Co has approached you to provide a financial analysis of Santos Ltd.
You access the Santos 2013 Annual Report from the following website:
http://www.santos.com/library/Annual_Report_2013.pdf
You are required to provide a written report to the accountant of Market Investment Company.
Your advice should address the following:
reporting for public companies in Australia;
governance”. Include in your discussion the various regulatory influences on public
companies in Australia in relation to corporate governance. Also provide your opinion
as to the possible strengths and weakness of corporate governance at Santos Ltd;
calculate the following ratios for the years 2013 and 2012:
Earnings per Share
A brief discussion of the various regulatory influences on external
A brief discussion of what is meant by the term “corporate
Operations to Liabilities
from Operations to Total Liabilities
Using the information contained in the financial statements of Santos Ltd,
Profitability – Net Profit Margin; Gross Profit %; Return on Assets;
Efficiency – Accounts Receivable Turnover; Inventory Turnover
Short-Term Solvency – Current Ratio; Acid Test; Cash Flow from
Long-Term Solvency – Debt to Equity; Debt to Total Assets; Cash Flow
Market Based – Price Earnings; Dividend Yield
Comment on trends revealed by the ratios calculated in (3) above. Use the
headings Profitability, Efficiency, Short-term Solvency, Long-term Solvency and Market
Based. Where possible, relate the changes observed in these ratios to events in the business
environment in general as discussed in (5) below.
environment which may have impacted on/or will impact on results of Santos Ltd in general.
Where possible support your argument with newspaper articles or other references e.g.
extracts from reports from the gas and resources industry.
Discuss two (2) recent events which have recently occurred in the business
Briefly discuss any possible limitations your analysis presents.
General Requirements:
of appropriate headings you deem to be of a professional standard. There is no prescribed
structure.
Referencing style.
concise and efficient in your writing as possible. You should not need any more than
five to six 1.5 spaced A4 pages (12 point font) to answer this question (not including
appendices).
your report. Provide a table summarizing the ratios in the body of your report.
personal reasons. Generally extensions will be granted for one week. If an extension
of more than two weeks is required then a different assignment will be given. This is
because marked assignments and solutions cannot be released until all assignments
have been received. It is unfair on other students to delay the return of their marked
assignments unduly.
submit the assignment will be provided at a later date. File types allowed include doc
and docx. Only one file will be accepted. If more than one file is uploaded, only the
first file listed will be marked.
A report style assignment is required. Choose a report structure, with the use
Full referencing is required in accordance with the USQ preferred Harvard
There is no specified word length for this assignment. However, be as
Attach the detailed workings of your calculations as an Appendix to
You should note that this assignment is based on Topics 7 - 12.
Assignment extensions will be granted if needed due to medical or
The assignment is to be submitted electronically. Details on how to
