A Thousand Words

The competition: A poster presentation on financial analysis using data visualization tools.

Sponsors: Al Futtaim Logistics

Prize money: 1st prize: AED1000 and 2^nd prize: AED 600 and 3^rd prize: AED 400

Task: You are a team of financial analysts appointed by an investor to advise which ONE of the following two companies listed on FTSE 100 is worthwhile to invest.

• TED BAKER PLC
• BURBERRY PLC

You are required to do a financial data analysis and present your investment decision to the investors using data visualization tools.

The team: This event is open only to undergraduate students (Year1,2 and 3) of BA Accounting and Finance and BA Business Accounting. A team consists of 3 or 4 students across the two programmes (any team with less than 3 members or more than 4 members will get disqualified).

Procedure:

1. Register for the competition.
2. Download data only from Morningstar.com, data from any other site is not acceptable.
3. You are expected to perform financial data analysis. Ratios, valuation and other analysis are readily available on the website, do not redo the computation.
4. The numbers can be seen on the website under the main tabs, such as financials, valuation, operating performance, key ratios, price vs fair value etc. Click the tab: “Financials” and this will open three additional tabs- Income statement, Balance Sheet and Cash flows. All participants should access the same type of data as given below:

Statement type	Data type	Period
Use “annual”	Use “as of reported”	Only 5 years data can be accessed free. You may choose to present 3/4/5 years data. 2018 figures should be included. Exclude TTM (Trailing Twelve Months).

5. Use data visualization tools and present them on a single A0 size paper. Make sure all the team member’s name, year of study and program are clearly stated on the poster.
6. On the event day you must arrive 30 min before to display the poster at the venue and present your investment decision in a 60 second time frame (basically your decision in a nut shell). There will be a Q & A session conducted by the judges and your team must answer the questions precisely and confidently. Please note, only under extenuating circumstances a team member can be absent, otherwise the team will get disqualified.

Judging criteria:

1. 20%: relevant and meaningful data is used for investment analysis
2. 50%: Quality of the data visualization tools. For e.g.:

• The graph or chart used is appropriate for a data
• The arrangement and flow of the graphs/charts/diagrams
• Clarity and easiness for decision making
• Aesthetic appeal in terms of color, font, font size etc.

1. 10%: clear investment decision communicated during the one-minute talk.
2. 20%: Q&A