FINC3600 Project 1: Corporate Finance Project Brief S1 2025

Project Learning Objectives

By completing this assignment, you will:

• Learn to apply corporate finance concepts and techniques from past finance courses in a realistic business setting.
• Communicate complex financial reasoning to a diverse audience, both in writing and in person.
• Gain insight into how corporate finance teams work and the effective operation of collaboration and peer review in a team environment.
• Gain insight into synthesising corporate finance theory and analysis of market data into corporate finance advice. 

Project Learning Activities

By completing this project, you will: 

• Integrate corporate finance theory with corporate finance practice.
• Work in a project setting with team members in a cooperative and collaborative fashion.
• Develop and peer review financial models. §Develop and peer review executive briefing reports.
• Develop and peer review board level written presentations.
• Present and communicate in senior executive and board settings.

Unit Learning Outcomes

At the completion of this unit you should be able to:

• LO1: demonstrate and integrate finance knowledge, concepts, and principles in a range of business contexts.
• LO2: identify, analyse, and solve business challenges reaching conclusions using fundamental concepts, principles and knowledge from the finance arena.
• LO3: communicate effectively and professionally using a range of communication modes in business contexts.
• LO4: recognise the need for, locate, evaluate and use information effectively.
• LO5: use different strategies to explore opportunities and construct new ideas, solutions, or products.
• LO6: evaluate issues relating to business ethics, sustainability and social responsibility in addressing business challenges.
• LO7: make a positive contribution to a team-based structure.

Project Overview

Introduction

It is 1 March 2025. Your team was approached by the CFO of your selected ASX listed company to provide corporate finance advice. The advice is sought ahead of the company's annual strategy meeting where a range of initiatives will be discussed by senior management and the board. The CFO has emphasised the importance of this advice being independent and hence your team was chosen in preference to a number of full-service investment banks who have traditionally provided transaction and debt related services to the company.

The CFO has requested that your analysis focus on material issues for the company. While you are not expected to perform detailed capital budgeting analysis, you are expected to provide some high level estimates of the costs and benefits of your recommendations.

The CFO will not provide any internal financial information and has requested that you base your work solely on publicly available information up to 1 March 2025. Your advice should be based on publicly available information including financial statements from the most recent annual or interim report and any ASX announcements - up to 1 March 2025.

CFO Briefs:

It is anticipated that the strategy meeting will review the current scope of the company's operations and in particular, consider significant changes including divestment and/or acquisitions. However, the CFO first wants to address the broader corporate finance issues currently facing the company. Hence, the CFO needs a rigorous corporate finance review of the company in preparation for the strategy meeting, in the form of CFO Briefs providing detailed advice on the following 6 corporate finance topics:

1. Capital structure
2. Leverage and liquidity
3. Environmental social and governance (ESG)
4. Payout policy
5. WACC for the main business activity
6. Scope of company's operations - this is a team paper

Board Presentation

 Following submission of the CFO briefs and receiving feedback on the CFO briefs, you will develop a presentation for the Board. The objective of the presentation is to make a specific corporate finance strategic recommendation(s) for future action that will be accepted by the Board of directors.

Role

You are performing the role of an independent external corporate finance advisory team whose client is the CFO of the company you have selected for this project. As an extension of your advisory role to the CFO, you will also be presenting to the Board.

Task 

Your task is to provide corporate finance advice to a public company CFO & Board. You will be applying your judgement and knowledge of corporate finance theory in the form of a case study of a real company, using publicly available, current market information, so as to provide the CFO & Board with relevant insights and recommendations.

It is recognised that you do not have hands-on experience with corporate finance advice, but you should use this case study to explore the experience of developing such advice. Please remember that a corporate board deals with substantial issues so make recommendations of relevant significance.