Your reference sources, in addition to the base case and question sets, should be online sites
and articles, Bloomberg terminals, your Integrated Semester textbooks, PowerPoint slides,
and other sources your professor assigns.
FINANCE ASSIGNMENT
Please make sure to read the background case about Walmart and the other resources provided by
your professor before you answer the questions below. Use either the Bloomberg terminals
located at the Feliciano School of Business or other reputable sources such as
finance.yahoo.com, morningstar.com, the Wall Street Journal etc. for the financial data to support
your answers. Provide references for the financial data that you use at the end of the finance
portion of the term paper (use APA format for the references.)
Questions (please answer the questions seperarly as opposed to answering them together in one questions separately as opposed to answering them together in one
essay)
The Walmart Supercenter located in Crossgates Commons in Albany, New York, is the world’s largest Walmart Supercenter covering 260,000 square feet on two floors. This supercenter stocks general merchandise, includes a full-service supermarket and hosts various fast food outlets. Assume that Walmart is considering launching a larger supercenter to surpass this one in New Jersey. This would be a major capital budgeting project for the firm. An undertaking of this scale requires coordinated planning across all functions of a business that you are studying in your Integrated Core classes. Choose and discuss three items on the balance sheet that you think opening a new supercenter will impact. Explain why you chose those particular items, and how the marketing, management and operations decisions of the company would impact them.
The textbook authors discuss a variety of financial ratios, and divide them into five categories. Choose three categories and calculate a financial ratios from each category for Walmart for the last two fiscal years (2021 and 2022). Make sure to select ratios that you think opening a new supercenter will affect, and explain your reasoning. Identify a competitor of Walmart, calculate the same ratios for that competitor, and contrast the results for the two companies over the two most recent years. Explain why you selected this competitor. Describe how the decisions made by management, marketing and operations functions of the company can impact, and hopefully improve, these financial ratios.
Walmart has a significant brand value that is closely tied to the emphasis the company places on the experiences of its customers and associates (employees). Discuss how
any violations of business ethics in the company might affect its investors, customers and employees, and ultimately impact the company’s overall financial performance. Provide specific examples of controversies concerning Walmart in recent years to support your arguments.
