Write a business report covering the financial statement analysis on the John Lewis Partnership and Next plc. Your report should include/consider the following

Write a business report covering the financial statement analysis on the John Lewis Partnership and Next plc.
Your report should include/consider the following:
A brief introduction setting out the scope of your report, including the background to the companies covered and an explanation of their position within the industry sector.
Using a clear structure, discuss approaches to analysing and interpreting financial statements and a justification of your methodology.
You need to demonstrate an understanding of the reasons why ratios and/or numbers have changed by reference to internal and external factors.
Your report must include discussion of the performance of the company by reference to your analysis of the following groupings of ratios:
efficiency,
liquidity/solvency,
investment
profitability and
general financial data and share price movements (if applicable).

It is expected that a large proportion of the financial information will be presented graphically. You are expected to calculate at least eight ratios yourself. You will need to provide your workings in the appendix to prove you have done so. You can track share price movements over the period for the two companies, the FTSE and the industry sector. The London Stock Exchange website is a useful source to help you do this. You may also use more ratios from this site or similar providing that you reference your sources correctly.
Your report should include a written analysis of your findings from your financial analysis, contrasting the companies’ performance with themselves, each other, the industry they operate in, and against the state of the economy over the three year period. Remember at this stage in your course you are not expected to merely state ‘results improved’ or ‘results worsened’, but WHY you think they did; was this because of a change in management, a corporate disaster, the general economy or something else? You will need to read the full reports, including the board of directors’ reports, analyst sites, general news stories and any other reliable sources you can find to thoroughly research your companies. Include an evaluation of internal & external factors influencing the future prospects for each company.
As John Lewis is a partnership and not a plc you should include a discussion on the ownership, governance and management implications compared to the plc.
Well-reasoned conclusions should be included, together with your reasoned conclusions on the investment potential of these two organisations and which you believe is the better managed company (reference to competitor performance and industry research required).
Marks will be awarded for good presentation, clear format and structure. The use of graphs and charts may help in your discussion. Accurate, complete and clear referencing of all information sources.

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