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Regarding optional exams in professional level, my study journey has been the same as yours. Just for the record, I took and pass from first attempts APM and AFM, fully based on OpenTuition free resources and practising past papers in ACCA practice platform.
Probably you should flip a coin and select which one to attempt first 🙂 .
Because, I made a long break between Applied Skills and Professional levels, I started first with APM. My personal perception was that APM is somehow more abstract than AFM, and does have have so close relationship with PM, as AFM does with FM.
But definitely AFM was easier for me.
Mr John Moffat,
Just to say thank you for your huge efforts and useful answers during my AFM study.
Reading your answers to various students’ questions was invaluable resource in my exam preparation.Pass AFM with 63% from first attempt!
This was my last exam and an end of a long study journey.
Thanks a lot!
Yeeeeeessssssssss!
63% pass from first attempt!
My final exam and my long ACCA journey seems to be at its end!
Thank you Mr Moffat and OpenTuition for your invaluable support!My variant was different.
1. APV-> NPV + Tax benefits on two loans (normal and subsidised), issue costs, some assumptions requirements.
Sensitivity analysis of sales volumes.
Value at Risk, and how VaR impacts riskiness in investment appraisals. For 95% confidence, I used standard deviation 1.645 in my quick calculation.
The normal loan was with annuity repayments and this made it more complex to calculate its tax reliefs.2. Equity valuation of combined company, percentage gain for predator’s shareholders. Some discussions on this.
3. Interest rate hedging – forward vs futures. Interest rate swaps, and some quick discussion for information system integration and its impact on decentralised treasury departments.
So, Dividend capacity is something very close to Free cash flow to equity, because we also deduct capital expenditures to reach the amount available for shareholders?
Please for clarifications related to 2 narrative parts of Zhichi Co question.
1. In requirement (a) answer, it is written:
“Information asymmetry between investors and a company’s managers sends signals that the company is only raising equity finance when share prices have peaked or shares are over-valued. This causes share prices to fall following announcements that a company is raising new equity financing.”Please, explain and clarify this asymmetry and the next sentence for the fall in share prices?
2. APV vs NPV- requirement b (iv) answer, it is written:
“APV does not normally take into account costs of financial distress, possibility of tax exhaustion and agency costs related to financing using debt. However, in Zhichi Co’s case, none of these is likely to be an issue because it has only used equity financing previously and therefore the impact of the above is likely to be minimum.”Please, explain and clarify these two sentences, and especially some words separately for this financial distress, tax exhaustion and agency costs?
Just, for example, agency costs are key part in each APV calculations approach. Why APV does not normally take them into account 🙂 ?
Just to clarify further, I add an extract from this question:
“Issue costs, which need to be paid, are anticipated to be 3% of the gross finance. Issue costs are not allowable as a tax-deductible expense”.The examiner’s answer for issue costs is 3/97 x $80m = $2.5m (without rounding 2.474$m).
Is it one and the same, if I gross up the financing and calculate the issue costs in the following way: 3% x 1.03 x $80m = 2.472$m?
Thank Mr. Moffat. For the Target company it’s clear.
But what about the percentage gain for the Predator’s shareholders?
Probably 1.75$/3.35$ per share= 52.3% percentage gain, where:
->1.75$ is the MV gain per share (difference between Predator’s post and pre-acqusition MV per share 5.10$-3.35$)
->3.35$ pre-acqusition MV of Predator’s share
I do not consider at all the cash payment in Predator’s case.Because the examiner’s answer is 9.3% percentage gain for Predator’s shareholders.
dariadim wrote:Spiro wrote:
Spiro wrote:Yeaaaaaa!!!! 55% pass!
YessssThis was my 3rd attempt (Mar, Jun and Dec 2021).
I study approx. 2 months for each of them. Even less for June, because of waiting for the Mar results.
Made a Summer break and finally succeeded in December.Spiro wrote:Yeaaaaaa!!!! 55% pass!
YessssJust to share my preparation approach fully based on free resources:
1.) SBL OpenTuition lectures and notes ~ 2 weeks (big thanks to Mr. Ken Garrett)
2.) SBL Past exam papers/mock exams ~ 1-1.5 months on ACCA practice platform (incl. 2 mocks in real-time 4h exam conditions)
3.) SBL ACCA Technical articles – all the time/ everywhere through mobile phone
4.) SBL Revision webinar of Mr. Ashim Kumar – 2×4= 8 hours priceless practical advices how to approach SBLNo textbooks and revision kits!
I’m a full-time employee with 2 children, and study late in the evenings (~3 hours) and weekends if possible 🙂 .
Good luck to everyone!
This mark allocation for which version of Achille is?
It seems that there have been at least 2 versions. One with big data question, and the other with Balridge excellence.It seems that there have been different paper variants. For those who have Q3 to evaluate sceptically the possible acquisition of river cruise company, one question. Do yo find any info about acquisition price? I think that such info was not included in the exhibit.
If such acquisition price is missing, this is good point to be sceptical.
P/E is worth if compared to industry, but such info was missing.
Also the financial data was just for the previous year. Nothing for the current one.Please for some advice, whether at the planning stage we should spend time for review of spreadsheets exhibits with lots of numerical data if any, or left this work when we approach the specific question for analyzing or evaluation?
My experience is that I’m completely overwhelmed at the planning stage and could not take anything from these spreadsheets.
However, what is your recommendation?Thanks, Sir.
Today i attempted sbl-dec-2018 available as a Practice exam 2. I strictly follow the above rule 3. Slightly different reading approach. I prefer 60 min. reading, planning and highlighting, and 180 min. answering.
Now the things look like much better. The 4th hour find me on the last 3b question 🙂4 hour exam is unhuman.
Also, this sbl-dec-2018, looks like much easier than Specimen 2, probably because there aren’t any xls computations, which is too unlikely to happen on the real exam.
Question practice is vital for time management during the exam. I also applied similar strategy like you, but when I tried some scenario case study questions, I found that I’m totally out of time control. Till the exam day, I will just practise questions.
Also I have some additional experience from successfully passed SBR and APM :), so do not underestimate practice.Linking Cultural Web model to Strategy implementation could be done at Management of changes stage of Strategic implementation.
At Management of changes, for example could be used Lewin’s 3 steps model: unfreeze, effect changes and refreeze. And here when discussing the style of changes, its behaviors aspects could be linked the Cultural web model.Hi, I hope that these extracts from a SBL technical article could help you.
Who’s who: the stakeholder/stockholder debate
Essentially, proponents of the stockholder theory argue that because organisations are ‘owned’ by their principals, the agents (directors) have a moral and legal duty to only take account of principals’ claims when setting objectives and making decisions. Hence, for a joint stock business such as a public company, it may be assumed that because principals (shareholders) seek to maximise their returns, the sole duty of agents is to act in such a way as to achieve that.
Stakeholder theorists, in contrast, argue that because a business organisation is a citizen of society, enjoying its protection, support and benefits, it has a duty to recognise a plurality of claims in the same way that an individual might act as a ‘responsible citizen’. In effect, this means recognising claims in addition to those of shareholders when reaching decisions and deciding on strategies.
and this also:
Pristine capitalists
At the extreme stockholder end is the pristine capitalist position. The value underpinning this position is shareholder wealth maximisation, and implicit within it is the view that anything that reduces potential shareholder wealth is effectively theft from shareholders. Because shareholders have risked their own money to invest in a business, and it is they who are the legal owners, only they have any right to determine the objectives and strategies of the business. Agents (directors) that take actions, perhaps in the name of social responsibility, that may reduce the value of the return to shareholders, are acting without mandate and destroying value for shareholders.
