FIN950 Assessment 4: ESG and Financial Performance Analysis for Socially Responsible Investing

The Task

Assume you are a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) working in the world’s top investment management firm, which aims “to conduct the business in a socially responsible and ethical manner by respecting the law, supporting universal human rights, protecting the environment and benefiting the local and regional communities” To construct an equity portfolio for a socially responsible client, your fund manager requested you to prepare a report on the “Analysis of the financial and non-financial performance of a public limited firm”.

You will perform the following critical tasks.

• To analyse the accounting and stock market performance of the firm from the perspective of existing and prospective shareholders
• To analyse the Environmental factors (including actions to address climate risk) of the firm and assess the potential for conflicts of interest between the firm and the environment (planet).
• To analyse the Social factors (including actions to address modern slavery risk) of the firm and assess the potential for conflicts of interest between the firm and society (people).
• To analyse the Corporate Governance factors of the firm and assess the potential for conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders.

Based on your analyses of the above issues, you are expected to infer whether the firm is well-managed or poorly managed (socially responsible or irresponsible; financially viable or not viable) and provide specific recommendations to the firm's management and equity investors.

Group formation and related matters:

The groups will be formed in Workshop 2, Week 2, with each group containing 4 students. All groups are required to follow the “Teamwork Rules & Charter” available through the Moodle site. Group members are expected to discuss and work among themselves actively but not refer to the work of any other groups. Any collusion of this form will be treated seriously and penalised according to the UOW policy on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism. Each member in a group is expected to contribute equally to the assessment task, and any concerns or issues among the group must be discussed with the subject coordinator prior to submission. In the event of any problems in the group (such as illness, or differences between group members), the subject coordinator is the final arbitrator of any issues arising in the group work.

• The group members can be from different campuses.
• The group members must be finalised by 3^rd September 2025.
• The group members must submit the teamwork rule and charter form by 10 September 2025.

Length 

Oral Presentation:

• The total duration of the presentation is 30 minutes, comprising 20 minutes allocated for the pre-recorded presentation and 10 minutes designated for live questions and answers.
• Each member will have 5 minutes to present.
• Timing control:
  • Since this is a pre-recorded presentation, it is your responsibility to self-monitor time and ensure each presenter stays within the allocated limit.
  • The final video must not exceed 20 minutes in total.
  • Practice your sections and edit if necessary to keep within the time constraints.

Written Report: The length of the report is 5,000 words (+/- 10%), excluding the title page, executive summary, table of contents, references, and appendix.

Peer-to-Peer Assessment: 1-page pre-structured form