Forums › ACCA Forums › ACCA APM Advanced Performance Management Forums › *** ACCA Paper APM March 2019 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***
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- March 6, 2019 at 11:01 am #507948March 6, 2019 at 12:20 pm #507998AnonymousInactive
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APM!!
March 6, 2019 at 1:54 pm #508018How did everyone find that? Thought it was pretty hard work getting everything answered in the time
March 6, 2019 at 2:16 pm #508027Yes. There was no enough time to answer all the questions properly.
March 6, 2019 at 2:29 pm #508034Very little time to respond çonvingly..
March 6, 2019 at 2:41 pm #508039Did q3 first, then q2 and left q1 until end…misread question however under pressure and treated investment as shareholders…will I get marks still?
March 6, 2019 at 2:51 pm #508046AnonymousInactive- Topics: 7
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Did anyone get a really big negative EVA figure? The capital employed was around $94m but the NOPAT was around $1m, therefore it was a ridiculous calculation?
March 6, 2019 at 3:02 pm #508053Yeah i got a big negative EVA, which i think was right because that’s why they were making changes to the company
March 6, 2019 at 3:02 pm #508054AnonymousInactive- Topics: 7
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That is music to my ears, thanks johnnygsy!
March 6, 2019 at 3:05 pm #508056I’m gutted.. that went horribly. Once I had messed up the first section of question 1, I just lost all sense and the rest of the exam was a disaster. This one is a definite resit. Now the decision is, do I resit this in June, or take the others as originally planned? Why on earth did I pick this as on option?
March 6, 2019 at 3:08 pm #508061Hi have something of a negative 8.8m EVA.
I’m surprise not much adjustment needed for any doubtful debt, accounting depreciation other than adding back:
Finance Cost 70% x $xxxx
Non Cash Expense $110k
R&D void for 20X4 $500k but, 75% in 20X5 which is $375kLess Economic Depreciation $1m+. I didn’t find any accounting deprecation
C/E: using the beginning balance around $83m – $85m
only added back non-cash expense again $110kWACC slightly above 10% (ke 14% x 65/100) + (kd 4.5%(1 – 0.3 tax) x 35/100
just hoping my workings gain some marks even though the end result might be wrong. but i thought about it, since Vultures Retail actual earnings is already Net Loss after tax, i don’t think i should have positive EVA in the light of it’s restructuring process and R&D cost for the artificial sweeteners, but who knows in future government might may more attention to raise tax again? nothing is guaranteed. If the board is rightly imagine about the fortune of Vultures, then investor might hoping to see a positive EVA in future.
Evaluation of EVA.
Merits
– adjusted to cash flow, hence unlikely subject to manipulation on accounting profit
– absolute value translate creating or destructive value
– comparative data for year on year basis if consistently used to track company performancedrawbacks
– in reality there’s 100+ adjustment, so it can be time consuming
– Not comparable to other business in the same industry of the different sizes
– short term focus rather than long term, subject to tunnel vision if using this measurement alone to make decisionMarch 6, 2019 at 3:14 pm #508064Can anyone remember specifically how they answered the question on EVA?
I took operating profit then
+ non cash expenses ($200k i think)
+ 75% marketing spend ($337.5k)
+ accounting depreciation (both values)
– economic depreciation
No tax paidFor capital employed i took opening bal then
+ accounting depreciation
+ Prior year marketing ($500k)
– Economic depreciationFor WACC I got 10.2%
And calculated EVA as something like -$7.7m
March 6, 2019 at 3:14 pm #508065AnonymousInactive- Topics: 7
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zhixiang85 – that’s exactly how I calculated it, however I was second guessing myself a lot as I hadn’t seen a negative EVA that big in all the past papers I went over! Glad to have confirmation that I was along the right lines, cheers.
March 6, 2019 at 3:20 pm #508067bennet846 – I did tried to spot if there’s some figures i can sort of “revived” the EVA into positive figure, but the question has too little adjustment and C/E is already at $9m at least, hence it is unlikely NOPAT will enough to tank the C/E deduction.
Any positive EVA might become contradicting because Actual P/L already showing a $500,000 net loss after tax. EPS if available will be negative
March 6, 2019 at 3:21 pm #508069AnonymousInactive- Topics: 7
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For the CE I added back the previous years $500k only, not the current year NCE of $110k
March 6, 2019 at 3:21 pm #508070yea, EVA was negative,
CE = 93,8 – opening+0,5 Marketing costs (long-term) fo 20×4 = 94,3
NOPAT = 0,3 mln + 75% marketinf+ finance cots (1-30%)+ 10 mln non-cash+deperc 1,3 mln ( i took only first) – economic depre 1,9 = aprox 0,5 mln
WACC=10,2%
Eva = aprox – 9 mln
What about Q3, 3 E – what did you write?
March 6, 2019 at 3:27 pm #508075I spent a lot of time for q1 ((( esspecially for i)
Less time for Q2 and Q3,What’s limitation to use ABM you wrote in Q2?
March 6, 2019 at 3:29 pm #508076To be honest it wasn’t too bad. The biggest challenge is still time management, it is not possible to answer fully in time allocated..
March 6, 2019 at 3:34 pm #508079AnonymousInactive- Topics: 7
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School 1 for better Economy and then School 2 for better Efficiency and Effectiveness
March 6, 2019 at 3:36 pm #508081Elena – the ABM was my weakest write up, given time-pressured i was trying to read the case fast, but kind of information overload when case starts to mentioned the different material used for product type, customer type, and the new bespoke type. Thankfully the examiner did not provide another appendix filled with numbers for calculation.
as far limitation i had written
1) time required for staff to train moving from existing costing system to ABM, can be demotivating process
2) time consumption and complex due to the types of product and customers
3) historical data might be unsuitable to migrate into new ABM because of it’s existing format, difficult to break down into related activities
4) without investing into IT software, it would be too hard to handle for the amount of volume
5) the cost to upgrade might be more than being beneficial, if further need to engage with external expert – outsourcing.March 6, 2019 at 3:38 pm #508083I thought Q1 was fairly standard and self explanatory, negative EVA as expected given recent poor financial performance.
Q2 and Q3 very time pressured due to detail in question. I don’t know why ACCA continue to make these 25 mark questions unnecessarily long.
I was surprised that corporate failure never came up given that it wasn’t in the December exam either!
March 6, 2019 at 3:45 pm #508085Qn 3.
Effectiveness School 1 wins – actual achievement vs expectation. later part on League table issue, there’s possible of ‘gaming’ due to different marking scheme. most lenient marking scheme could have generate high achievement than strict marking.Efficiency School 1 wins – 57 students per teacher compare to 5 students per teacher in school 2. but again at a cost when school 1 teacher has to working 45 hours a week and the same salary as school 2 teacher, there in exchange of teacher satisfaction ratio and turnover
Economical School 2 – Staff x Average salary
there nothing in the league table displaying the rating for school meals, recreation facilities and living condition. The parent’s are confused by the league table itself because it’s difficult to prioritize. the highest amount of enrollment in school 1 could also due to geographical factor (accessibility to public transport) instead of the true credibility of the school – hope i didn’t write rubbish for this one.
March 6, 2019 at 3:49 pm #508086Transfer Pricing was my weakest topic and i was glad it didn’t came out 😀
March 6, 2019 at 3:55 pm #508090@chullbulla said:
I used budge numbers due to time pressure for EVA will I still get marks for something?I’m not an expert in marking but I am sure you’d get marks as choosing what to adjust & formula should gain marks . If it makes you feel better , I made similar error in a different ACCA exam ( using wrong set figures) and know by my results I didn’t lose that many marks. Time constraints are ridiculous in option papers .
March 6, 2019 at 3:56 pm #508091Q1: integrated reporting requires also non-financial data that they are absent from the report
For the stakseholders how did you approach it? I used the matrix keep them happy, informed, key players etc.Q2: ABM & ABC is more appropriate than absorption costing currently used to evaluate which activities create value and have a better pricing for the products. However additional costs raised from ABC implementation and also due to the different markets the approach is different. Where the product is anyway expensive, then the costs raised from the ABC implementation do not worth taking to achieve a better pricing.
Q3: To use the league tables to benchmark the schools with so different activities (students with less abilitities and art school) would not result in a correct benchmarking. In addition the choice of the school depends also on the area of residence. Even if the 3 schools were ranked high it would be difficult to attaract new students.
It’s my last one, second time , fingers crossed! however, the style that the examiner wants us to reply difers from all the other acca exams that you have to write the story of your life! you never know if you have passed this one!
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