Group-Based Assignment on Recommending Securities for a Core Investment Fund in Singapore Equity Mar

This is a group-based assignment. You should form a group of 4 members from your seminar group. Each group is required to upload a single report via your respective seminar group site in Canvas. Please elect a group leader. The responsibility of the group leader is to upload the report on behalf of the group.

It is important for each group member to contribute substantially to the final submitted work. All group members are equally responsible for the entire submitted assignment. If you feel that the work distribution is inequitable to either yourself or your group mates, please highlight this to your instructor as soon as possible. Your instructor will then investigate and decide on any action that needs to be taken. It is not necessary for all group members to be awarded the same mark.

You are a security analyst working for a global investment fund, and have recently been assigned to cover the Singapore equity market You have been tasked to recommend securities to a core investment fund, which is looking at stable income producing assets limited to the Finance, Manufacturing and Real Estate sectors. The fund has an annual investment total return objective of 8%. Your fund charges a 3% flat fee on assets under management. You have been reprimanded by your fund manager in the last appraisal discussion for forgetting that the total return objectives demanded is net of fees.

You are now in the Phase 2 circuit breaker environment and working from home. The Covid-19 pandemic was first identified as an infectious outbreak in Wuhan, China in late 2019 and within months, this viral infection quickly crossed borders and impacted countries in an unprecedented manner. Governments found that they had to shut down borders and restrict movements within their country to try to contain this disease as infection rates soared, overwhelming hospitals, resulting in mounting death rates. Singapore was not spared, and you observed the negative sentiments reflected in very erratic stock market movements.

You have been assigned to identify one listed company for investment in Singapore. Your fund manager has asked you to evaluate the continued suitability of Singapore as an investment destination as well as to select one listed company within a target industry to invest USD10M for a period of not less than 12 months. The selected company should be listed on the Main Board of the Singapore Stock Exchange. You are to assume that the yield on Singapore Government Bonds is 2% on a short-term horizon.

The fund that you work for described previously is still in its initial year of drawing down on committed capital. You have been allocated up to $50 Million to invest in one stock at the start. You must submit a recommendation paper to your Investment Committee within a month. You started framing your approach which you divided into the following areas:

• Appraise Singapore as an investment destination against the backdrop of the covid pandemic and geopolitical tensions between the USA and China.

• Use an appropriate empirical approach to compute the required rate of return for investing in Singapore listed equities.

• Indicate a suitable industry to invest in and support your recommendation with appropriate economic facts and statistics.

• Identify and compare three (3)companies within the selected industry for comparison using appropriate financial ratios and recommend the company which you are selecting to carry out further analysis.

• Distinguish between top-down analysis and bottom-up analysis and which method you would use in the context of the Covid pandemic within the next 12 months for the market which you are covering. Justify your selection of methods used.

You are quite convinced that your initial filtering to focus on this target listed company is correct. You then proceed to carry out a full valuation of this company by downloading the most recent annual report and analyse the financial standing and indicative fair value of this company. You are to download the relevant financial statements from the listed company website to carry out the following financial computations for the selected company. To help you arrive at the fair market valuation of the Company, your approach is as follows:

• Compute the Free Cash Flow to Finance and Free Cash Flow to Equity.

• Design an appropriate discounted cashflow valuation method to value the fair market value of the company and justify the reasons

• Value the company on a per share basis.

You are satisfied with your fundamental analysis of the selected company. Now, you want to assess whether the market pricing is at the right level for you to invest into the company. (Refer to market price on the day (state date in your report) for the last done transaction for this company and then decide what investment actions you can take). You break down your approach in the following steps:

• Explain the use of a suitable Stock Investment Rating System. Based on this rating system and the stock price of this company on the day of your analysis (quote the market price and state the time and date of reference), propose an Investment Rating for this company and

• Regardless of the recommendation in (a), you have been instructed to invest in this company, compute the total number of shares you can acquire with the funds allocated for you?