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Hello everyone,
I had failed in RAP in this recent period because of references and now i’m going to resubmit it again. I choose Samsung Co. and topic 8 for my project. In previous attempt I used 2010, 2011 and 2012 financial statements and when I failed the moderator warned me to use most recent financial statements. The 2013 financial statements had just published yesterday i.e 6th April although the 2013 annual report will be published next month which will include many other relevant information, I am going to resubmit my project with the previous financial statements i.e 2010 2011 and 2012 as I don’t have sufficient time to incorporate 2013 financial statements in my report. So please guys do confirm me that this issue will not be a reason for failure of my RAP.
I’d also emailed to Oxford university and discussed them with this issue and they informed me that if financial statements of the most recent year is available before the end of February then you are oblige to add those financial statement in your report.you have to use the financial statements published before 1st of March for the Period 28 of RAP submission
we are in 2014, therefore, 2010-11-12 out dated. Companies usually issue report after two months of financial year end. Marker will sure fail you if you give 2012 report in 2014.
Mujji is right. 1 March 2014 is the ‘cut-off’. You could of course show how proactive you are by making a comment at the end on any post-March 2014 results ( companies release press statements ahead of the actual report). Mention in your Limitations section about the release dates of the latest accounts to ‘cover’ yourself (and cite the date the auditors signed them off as evidence) Good luck!
Once I asked this question to OB and I got reply that if you get new report one month ahead of submission then this is enough time to incorporate into RAP. May be OB has changed its rules.
I think you will find that there is a ‘3 month’ rule that is, that you are not expected to have used any updated financial statements unless they have been available in the public domain for at least 3 months prior to submission. I do not have the current info pack (2013/14) to hand at the moment but when I do I’ll give the exact citation of the rule. As mentioned, any more recent results, particularly if they are significant should be referred to but a complete update would be unnecessary unless the statements were available before 1st March 2014
sorry for late reply… Samsung company year end is 31 Dec… its financial statement had been published in its website at 6 April 2014 and its just include only financial statements and notes the annual report will be published in the end of May as it stated in there website so in this case how could I include 2014 f.statements ???
Maybe the OBU moderator statement was made in general terms as they anticipated that as a major corporation, Samsung would have their results out PDQ (there is usually pressure from the shareholders and stock exchange to get them out within a couple of months of the year end – obviously things must be different in S. Korea!). I think though that you would be wise to try to bring in the half year results for 2013 if possible (you could compare some of the really important figures to the 2012 half year ones) + anything that shows that you have tried to be as current as possible (a couple of recent comments from the press slipped in somewhere appropriate perhaps?) 😀
However you cannot do the impossible so you need to make sure that they are aware of this important limitation in availability of the annual report when marking.
You can do this in a number of ways (perhaps all of them so that is plainly obvious!)
1. Draw attention to it in the re-submission statement2. Mention it in your Limitations section
3. If you have some documentary proof that the statements weren’t out then download this and then upload it as a submission file – it probably will have to be as an Appendix but you can try to give it the title or heading ‘Important Note on financial statements’
4. Drag it up (briefly) in the Conclusion (especially if 2013 had particularly significant results – how do the profit figures look for example compared with 2012?). Usually the rule of thumb is that no new ideas should be introduced in the Conclusion but in this case a sentence or two would be permissible. (I have no idea how Samsung performed but hypothetically you could write “after a difficult 2012, the latest figures only just recently released (6 April 2014) for 2013 show great improvements in the profit and sales, continuing the upward trends revealed in the half year figures” – depending on of course, what has actually happened!!!)
@bassaniobroke I went through both the latest Info pack and resubmission guide but couldn’t find a definitive answer in either about the ‘3 month rule’ – must have dreamt it myself!!! I still think it is unreasonable for OBU to expect you to update anything that has only so recently become available. I may check the actual state of affairs out with them myself so that we all know – so watch this space! 🙂Thank you Trepena for your reply last few weeks back I had a conversation with Obu employees from them I asked from them that what is there policy regarding using the latest financial statements and they told me that “The Programme Director has advised that any Company results that are published (in any form) less than 90 days before submission closes do not have to be used.” they also told me that ” If 2013 results were published before the end of February you are obliged to include them – if you do not you will fail..”
The financial results were available at April though Annual report will e going to publish at the end of may , they confirmed me that yes I can continue with the previous financial years i.e 2010,2011,2012.
As you are saying that if it is possible include the half year ratios of 2013, in my opinion i can’t include them as I have done all my work in the last 3 years and including the 2013 ratio will lead to me a great mess.
1) I had already mention this problem in the limitation paragraph.
2) I also will be going to mention in the re-submission statement
3) I want to confirm from you that should I upload a photo of Samsung wep page in which it is written that “The Annual Report will be available for viewing online in the end of May each year.” ??? here is the link for that web page
https://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/investor_relations/financial_information/annual_reports.html
4) i will include the 4th step
and yes i forgot to mention one thing that Samsung held its AGM at March, 14, 2014, in which they did disclosed the financial statements to there share holder, but the financial statements were available in there website for the public at 6 April 2014.
Well that’s sorted that one out – 3 months it is then! Thanks 🙂
It is the date the annual report is in the public domain (even OBU can’t expect their students to become shareholders to get the accounts early!!!) 😀
I suggest that you do a screen print of that Samsung page as it clearly shows the 6 May date and save that for uploading (the link will probably go to the annual report itself after that date)
Yes that is a good and sensible strategy you are following as unfortunately you can only get a C pass grade with a re-submission. It makes sense to give them what is required but not go to the unnecessary hassle of making adjustments for the half year.
If you meet the assessment criteria you will pass (just ensure that you have satisfactorily addressed all the issues that they failed you on last time – so that’s what you really need to concentrate on)
However if anyone reading this is submitting for the first time but in a similar position (where the financial figures you are forced to use are more than a year old) then bringing in some figures for the half-year might push the grade up. Among the criteria for an A are “High level of critical thought shown in the analysis and a rigorous approach to the evaluation of information” and those students getting an A in my experience tend to demonstrate that they have gone ‘the extra mile’ i.e. the ‘rigorous approach’.
However in the final analysis the RAP grade doesn’t really impact much on the class of the honours degree so most students are perfectly happy with a C. ‘A pass is a pass’ after all and will secure you the BSc (hons) – and if you do get an A for the RAP unless you have fairly good exam grades (average 66% or above) you still won’t get 1st class honours. 🙂
I need some guidance from you, I had interpret the gross profit margin and net profit margin of 2011 as “In FY11 the company gross profit and net profit margin ratio decline by 2% and 1.9%. The sales in 2011 rose by 7.1% which is because of capturing the market and selling innovative products and cost of sales rose by 9.8% and in the cost of sales the depreciation expense rose by 20% which is the main factor that had declined the gross profit margin ratio in 2011 as compare to 2010. In 2011 company purchased property, plant and equipment for its expansion in operation and to increase its production capacity, due to which the P.P&E rose by 18% which justifies the increasing depreciation expense in 2011.”
“The Selling and administrative expenses, operating income and expenses and financial income and expense growth were all mostly in-line with the revenue growth but due to the lower gross profit the net profit growth declined by 15% and eventually the net profit margin also declined by 2.9%.”
@Charles – what exactly is the question?
By the way you should try to avoid saturating your text with figures – there are 6 percentages in the first paragraph – can’t you show most of these as graphs and charts and just focus on one or two figures that are absolutely vital to understanding what has gone on? (Otherwise the reader gets lost in a ‘sea’ of numbers and ends up confused as to what has happened when!) Have a graph that shows net and gross profit for example then you don’t need to mention figures in the text as the reader can see the trend for themselves from the graph.
Have another graph for sales and cost of sales Then all you have to say is something along the lines of “the 7.1% rise in sales was due to capturing the market and selling innovative products” [REFERENCE REQUIRED]. If you have the graph for cost of sales that shows the trend then all you need to write is “the company purchased property, plant and equipment for its expansion in operation and to increase its production capacity [REFERENCE REQUIRED] which saw an increase of 20% in depreciation and pushed up the cost of sales and thereby causing a reduction in the gross profit margin of 2% in (whatever year it was)
I have a couple of serious questions for you though:
1. why are you not using 2012 figures? If you are submitting a RAP for Period 28 you should be concentrating on the latest year, NOT 2011 (I appreciate that Samsung 2013 accounts are not available)
2. why aren’t you referencing?
If you don’t use the correct up to date accounts and do not reference adequately then you will not pass.ok now I understand what you are trying to say.
and I am also using the 2012 figures, I wast just trying to receive guidance from you about the interpretation of ratios.
It is not so much ‘interpretation’ of ratios you should focus on but on explaining what has caused the changes (as I explained previously). You need to read more widely from a variety of sources rather than relying on calculations as the ratios without explanation are meaningless (a RAP based almost exclusively on ratio calculations and the information in the annual report is most likely to fail on Evaluation and Analysis).
Look at the PESTLE and SWOT factors: these must be tied in to the financial analysis as they are often what has influenced management strategies
@trephena… the 7.1% rise in sales was due to capturing the market and selling innovative products” [REFERENCE REQUIRED]. So what to write as reference as I had found this information from the Chairman and CEO message to stakeholders include in the annual report.
Use the chairman’s name and the year of the report e.g. (Kimoka, 2012) and in your reference list:
Kimoka M (2012) – Chairman & CEO’s Statement to Stakeholders, Samsung Annual Report 2012 pages X1 – X3 🙂hi trephena. Please guide me I had stuck how should I reference the name of CEO in reverse order like “last name” first and then “first name”. The CEO name is Oh-Hyun Kwon ??
You have completely stumped me on this one @Charles as unfortunately I am not familiar with the convention of Oriental/Chinese names!!!! I suggest therefore that we take the easy option on this and use (CEO statement, 2012) in the text and in the Reference list:
CEO Statement (2012): Oh-Hyun Kwon – Samsung CEO, Statement to Stakeholders date [try to put in the actual date if there is one- if there isn’t then don’t worry 🙂 ], Annual Report 2012
Of course if there are any students out there who know which way round we should be writing this name then please enlighten us – is Oh-Hyun the ‘Family’ name and Kwon the Individual name like the Western ‘First’ name or is it the other way round? Oh and apologies to the CEO of Samsung – no disrespect is intended in our approach, it is due to our ignorance! 😀
Ok now this is a bit scary… If it is said in the obu report to use financial statements published at least 3 months ago before submission, and i have used annual report for year end Dec 2013 published on april 5, which makes it less than three months, what should i do because i have already made the changes reflecting the latest year, should i submit it with current changes.
To use my favourite catch phrase: “Chill baby, chill!” 😀
You will never be penalised for using financial statements that are more up to date and more recent than 3 months. For Period 28 submissions most financial statements should be 2013 or 2014 unless there are exceptional circumstances. (Only know of Samsung so far that this applies to). I have known RAPs using older financial statements with no recent ones to be failed on Evaluation though! (And possibly they could fail on 2. Application too)
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