Accounting and Auditing Research Exercise and Knowledge busters PDF

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Exercise 3. What is the most recent exposure draft or accounting standards update (ASU) for accounting for long-duration contracts? What database helped you find an answer? 

Financial Services—Insurance (Topic 944) - Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts1

The FASB Database has helped me find the answer. 5. Find the company Alexander & Baldwin. Write a one-sentence explanation describing Alexander & Baldwin's business. Identify the company’s top competitors. Identify the databases and parts of the database that you used. o

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Alexander & Baldwin2  (NYSE: ALEX) is a premier Hawaii real estate company with a history of serving the islands for 150 years. Alexander and Baldwin are Partners for Hawaii, committed to creating special places and experiences in our state while acting with an abiding respect for our communities, people, cultures and environment. Alexander & Baldwin Top Competitors3  Vornado Realty Trust  Crescent Real Estate  Carpionato Group  Hudson Pacific Properties  SL Green Realty  Highwoods Properties

The main website of Alexander & Baldwin and ZoomInfo provided me the answer for the question. In the website of the former, I went to the description of the company to garner the information. For the top competitors of the former, I used the ZoomInfo website to determine the competitors of the said company. 10. Describe TDH Holdings, Inc. noting its major products and its headquarters location. Give at last two major reasons as to why the stock was volatile in 2019.  TDH Holdings, Inc.4  TDH Holdings, Inc. operates as a holding company. The Company, through its subsidiaries, manufactures pet food products such as biscuits, meats, chicken, and dog dental bones, as well as canned vegetables and chews. TDH Holdings serves customers worldwide.  Address: World Trade Center, No.6 Room 7221 Hongkong Middle Road Qingdao, 266071 China Two reasons of the volatility of stocks during 20195 1. TDH Holdings, Inc. Receives Nasdaq Delisting Notification 2. Subsequently notified of its failure to comply with the Listing Rule 5550(b) which requires a minimum of $2.5 million in stockholders' equity, $35 million in market value of listed securities, or $500,000 in net income from continuing operations for continued listing.

16. Find the title of a recent article from the Journal of Accountancy that discusses “money laundering.” 

Money laundering: Combating a global threat the vigilance of CPAs plays an important part in an international effort to deter financial crime.6 By Alan S. Abel, CPA/CFF, and Ian A. MacKay, CPA, CGMA

Knowledge Busters 2. Find the profitability ratios for the bank Wells Fargo for the most recent year. Provide an analysis of what these ratios indicate for Wells Fargo’s operations and use of its assets. How has Wells Fargo performed since 2015, a year before its management crisis? 

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Profitability Ratios for the bank Wells Fargo7  Profitability: 4.54/10 - Wells Fargo has worst Profitability than 95.24% of the companies on the Banks industry.  Net Margin: 0% - Wells Fargo has better Net Margin than 100% of the companies on the Banks industry.  ROE (Return on Equity): 1.88% - Wells Fargo has worst ROE (Return on Equity) than 62.5% of the companies on the Banks industry.  ROA (Return on Assets): 0% - Wells Fargo has better ROA (Return on Assets) than 100% of the companies on the Banks industry.  Solvency: 3.93/10 - Wells Fargo has worst Solvency than 80.95% of the companies on the Banks industry.  Debt to Equity Ratio: 0 - Wells Fargo has worst Debt to Equity Ratio than 100% of the companies on the Banks industry.  Interest Coverage Ratio: 0 - Wells Fargo has worst Interest Coverage Ratio than 100% of the companies on the Banks industry. Wells Fargo Performance since 20158  According to the financial review in 2015, they generated $22.9 billion of net income and record diluted earnings per common share (EPS) of $4.12 and ended the year as the world's most valuable bank by market capitalization. They produced strong loan and deposit growth, grew the number of customers they serve, improved credit quality, enhanced the risk management practices, increased the capital and liquidity levels and rewarded shareholders by increasing dividend and continuing to repurchase shares of common stock. The achievements during 2015 continued to demonstrate the benefit of the diversified business model and the continued focus on the real economy. Their contribution to the real economy in 2015 was broad based and included originating $213.2 billion in residential mortgage loans, $31.1 billion of auto loans, $18.8 billion in new loan commitments to the small business customers, who primarily have less than $20 million in annual revenue, and $34.4 billion of middle market loans.

3. Review General Electric’s financial reports for the last three years, and perform a ratio analysis of them. In one paragraph, discuss the company’s financial situation. What databases and parts of that database did you use to find the answer? The current ratio from the past three years is always greater than 1.0 which is a desirable situation to be in. While the debt ratio from the past three years is always greater than 1.0 meaning that it has more debt than assets, especially in 2019 wherein the debt ratio is 2.9881.

The profitability ratio from the past three years is all negative, meaning that the company is making less money than it is spending. Macrotends database helped me find the answer for this question. It indicated the General Electric Financial Ratios for 2005 up to 2020.9 5. Find the industry ranking of General Electric in the electric power generation business. Who are the largest three companies in the industry? What database did you use? Provide a financial comparison of these three companies. Based on the power technology website, it publishes an analysis on Top ten power companies in 2020, wherein the General Electric ranked 7th and it reported a total revenue of $95.2bn in 2019, down by 2% compared with the previous year. Renewable energy and power businesses contributed to $33.96bn of the total revenue. The renewable energy segment revenues increased by 7.8% in 2019 while those of the power segment declined by 15.9% year-on-year due to lower unit sales and services revenues. The growth in the renewable energy segment was driven by higher sales in equipment and services.10 The Three Largest Companies in Power Generation Business or Industry11 

Enel

Enel’s 2019 revenues increased by 6.3%, driven by infrastructure and network operations in Latin America, distribution business in Brazil, and thermal generation activities in Italy. Enel added more than 3GW of new renewable capacity in 2019, increasing its total renewable capacity to 42GW and exceeding its thermal generation capacity of 39GW for the first time. The company’s investment decisions in 2019 were impacted due to weak economic conditions created by the trade tensions between the US and China and uncertainty regarding the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. Enel presented its 2020-2022 strategic plan focusing on decarbonization and electrification in November 2019. The company plans to increase renewable capacity and gradually phase out conventional power generation assets. It also intends to increase the electrification of energy consumption to expand its consumer base and digitalize its distribution grids to increase the service quality and grid flexibility. Enel expects no significant impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on its plans due to its geographical distribution and sound financial structure, which will help in maintaining continuity of operations. 

Electricite de France

Electricite de France’s (EDF) revenues increased by 4% in 2019, contributed by the renewable sector, as well as power generation and distribution activities in the UK and Italy. The company accelerated its investments in renewable energies, including wind and solar in 2019. Construction on approximately 4.4GW of renewable projects was started during the year such as 2GW of offshore wind projects. Major energy projects commissioned in 2019 included the 400MW Sinop dam in Brazil and unit two of Taishan nuclear power plant in China. Construction of the 420MW Nachtigal dam in Cameroon was also commenced during the year. EDF implemented three major plans during the year, including the solar plan involving the acquisition of 2,000ha of land, the storage development plan constituting the acquisition of Pivot Power in the UK, and electric mobility plan aimed at marketing the company’s electric mobility solutions in four of its target countries. The company also

acquired Pod Point, an operator of charging stations in the UK, as part of the electric mobility plan. EDF’s new projects construction has been impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic since the end of March 2020. The company, however, has strong liquidity to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to its latest quarterly report. EDF has revised its nuclear output target to 300TWh in 2020 and plans to target a production between 330TWh and 360TWh in 2021 and 2022. 

Engie

Nuclear and renewable sectors contributed to Engie’s revenue growth in 2019, which increased by 5.4% year-on-year. The company’s nuclear division was supported by the higher availability of Belgian production units. Higher hydropower prices in Brazil added to the revenues of the renewable division in addition to the commissioning of 3GW of renewable capacity. Engie expects a significant impact on its client solutions division due to the COVID-19 pandemic while the impact on the remaining divisions is expected to be low. The company plans to exit low profit and non-core businesses in client solutions during 2020. It plans to focus on expanding its business through greater geographic selectivity and placing emphasis on markets with potential for expansion. Engie also intends to maintain strict operational expenditure and ensure targeted spending on business development activities. 11. Find 2019 stock prices on one of the largest private equity firms, the Blackstone Group. How much did their stock price change during that year? Explain why. What sources of information did you use to find this answer? Why is information on this private equity firm more readily available than information for most private equity firms? 

Based from the yahoo finance website, it shows the history of the closed stock price of the Blackstone Group from Dec. 12, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2019. From 54.17 it became 55.94. Based from the behavior of the stock price from Dec.12 to Dec. 31 2019, the stock price is getting higher and volatility is seen less. Its information is more readily available because the Blackstone Group is NYSE listed, making its stock information becomes more accessible to the public. Being listed in a stock exchange firms has a lot of benefits including allowing the public to know that this certain company is allowing its stocks to be exchanged or traded in the stock market.

1 https://www.fasb.org/jsp/FASB/Document_C/DocumentPage?cid=1176171066930&acceptedDisclaimer=true 2 https://alexanderbaldwin.com/about/ 3 https://www.zoominfo.com/c/alexander-baldwin-inc/1147594 4 https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/PETZ:US 5 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tdh-holdings-inc-receives-nasdaq-delisting-notification-300883969.html 6 https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2016/sep/money-laundering-financial-crime.html 7 https://inspectcompany.com/wells-fargo 8 https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/assets/pdf/about/investor-relations/annual-reports/2015-annual-report.pdf 9 https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GE/general-electric/financial-ratios 10 https://www.power-technology.com/features/top-ten-power-companies-in-2020/ 11 https://www.power-technology.com/features/top-ten-power-companies-in-2020/...