Today I thought I would share a few more interesting things about my company. Is anyone else spending way toooooo much time on this unit compared to their other units? I did the same thing last term, I hear my other 3 subject calling out my name, but I keep getting side tracked doing work for this unit. Oh well, there is always tomorrow, right!

So, picking up from the last post about Downers financial reports, I wanted to do a little digging into their Total Comprehensive Income for the last 4 financial years. I have already gone over the revenue and percentages that each sector contribute to that, so the big question is does Downer make a significant profit compared to the revenue they receive?

Everything seemed to be swimming along nicely from what I had read. Total Comprehensive Income for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 were:

$199.9 million, $187.7 million and $177.5 million. Tracking slight downward but nothing that alarmed me. Then the 2018 figure came along. $54.4 million. WTF? how is total comprehensive income down $123.10 million from 2017-2018?

I looked at the revenue and it was significantly larger than the 2017 period, so this increase in revenue lead to an increase in expenses. There was a $73 million difference between earnings before interest and tax. Now to generate more revenue it comes at a cost. Has downer surpassed it’s sticking point where additional revenue isn’t worth the additional expense amount? In all honesty, at this stage I don’t think so. It will be interesting to read 2019’s reports to see how they tracked for the most recent financial year. Another big difference is the 47 million increase in finance costs. Now in the case of Downer their finance costs include:

‘Finance costs comprise interest expense on borrowings, cost to establish financing facilities (which are expensed over the term of the facility), losses on ineffective hedging instruments that are recognised in profit or loss and finance lease charges’

After going over the financial report for 2018, I can conclude that I am not concerned over the relevant increases and decreases. Either that or my brain just didn’t want to read the pages over and over and over. I’m pretty confident with how Downer are tracking. They will come up against obstacles. I will blog a little more about the possibilities in my next blog but overall, I’m still impressed with the company. I think they are diversified enough to continue to grow and make profits.

After more investigation I also found this:

‘During the period, the Group identified Individually Significant Items totalling $178.6 million after tax including: – $76.4 million Mining goodwill impairment; – $40.6 million loss on divestment of freight rail; – $17.5 million unsuccessful Auburn rail claim; – $20.0 million Divisional merger costs; and – $24.1 million related to Spotless management redundancies, transaction costs and residual Strategy Reset costs.’

There is a lot that goes into these reports and I am fully aware that I may not be at a stage to fully comprehend the financial position of the company but I’m still confident in Downer’s financial position at this stage. I have provided links to the reports if you would like to have a look.

https://www.downergroup.com/Content/cms/Documents/_2015-16_Full_Year_Results/3_-DOW0030-Annual-Report-2016.pdf

https://www.downergroup.com/Content/cms/ResultsCentre/Annual-Report.pdf

https://www.downergroup.com/Content/cms/media/2018/PDF/2018_Full_Year_Results/FINAL_DOW0041_Annual_Report_2018_FA.pdf

I’m still extremely happy with being given this company. However at this stage my step 4 and 5 in addition to my word document are tracking along rather slowly 😂. Slow and steady wins the race right. There is so much information I could do around 78 blog posts, but I think it’s time to establish some boundaries.

Lisa.

As I go over the reports for my company, I am impressed. I did say this with my previous company so maybe it’s what I do, or maybe it’s because reading annual reports last term gave me more confidence going into this.

I expected to see big numbers and I wasn’t wrong. Looking at a billion dollar company is pretty cool. I am very impressed with the layout of the annual reports. they are set out well, easy to read and comprehend as appear to be less of a marketing strategy than Port of Tauranga’s were.

The first thing that struck me whilst looking over the 2016 report was just how many companies Downer owns and then the amount that have varying shares in. How do all these companies contribute to the overall financial position of Downer EDI? I found it very interesting to see how each sector influence the total revenue for the relevant financial years. Engineering, mining and transport services were all contributing around the same contribution values to the overall revenue in 2016, however revenue fell by 36.0 million in 2016. This was due to decreases in all sectors except for utility services and mining which held strong and stayed in line with 2015.

The fall in transport services in 2016 was due to decreased government spending’s in WA and bad weather which delayed project finishing dates. The increase in the utilities and services (35.2%) sector was due to a full year contribution from Tenix, as opposed to eight months the previous year. I’m thinking this company generates substantial revenue seeing the difference four months can make. Engineering, construction and maintenance decreased over the 2016 period due to the downturn in the resources sector in Australia at the time. I found all of this quite interesting in terms of how well the company profited for the year. Total profit for 2016 was down to 180.6 from 210.2 million in 2015. This is because of the drop in revenue.

I am very interesting in the sustainability of any company so Downer’s sustainability profile will have me glaring at my screen for long periods of time to pass judgement, but I do think they are doing the best they can in those regards. There is a lot of pressure from stakeholders to ensure high standards when it comes to sustainability, so hopefully high standards continue. Downer uses international standard ISO 14001 as a benchmark for sustainability. These standards specify requirements for an effective environmental management standards. It acts as a framework to be followed. I plan to do a little bit more research into this and Downers Zero Harm policy time permitting.

2016 also saw the disposal of Rimtex which resulted in a 2.3 million dollar loss. This makes me think that Downer saw the disposal of this business worth the loss incurred, this shows they will let go of companies that may not be adding value to their business. The acquisition of Green Vision Recycling in 2016 was something I thought to be pretty cool. Green Vison Recycling recycle horizontal infrastructure. Think roads and footpaths etc, pretty neat I reckon.

Transport and Engineering, construction and maintenance were the largest contributors to total revenue. Total revenue was up $0.4 billion over this period. The acquisition of Spotless was a significant event in 2017. The financials of Spotless were a separate services line in the reports. This prompted me to do a little more digging to find out why and it was because the timing of the acquisition. Full determination of the acquired values will be finalised in the 2018 FY. Net assets increased by 71.7% due to the consolidation of Spotless’s balance sheet. Total profit was at 181.5 million in 2017 tracking on par with 2016.

I bet you are happy I’m now onto 2018 if you are still reading this.

Now Spotless contributed to 24.6% of total revenue in 2018. An extremely valuable acquisition in my opinion. Revenue increased in all sectors over the 2018 FY, so much so that total revenue was up $4.8 billion (61.5%). Profit was down to $71.1 million. Due to finance cost increases and expense increases. I have only really covered revenue and profit in this blog. Total Comprehensive Income is another thing I will look more closely at, but the difference from total profit after tax isn’t too drastic so at this stage I will look more into this in my own time.

All in all, I am very interested in this company and I am glad to have been given it as my company for the assessment. My next blog will be on the cool thing Downer are apart of that struck my interest.

I hope you are all going well with this unit so far.

Lisa.

My play on words game is getting stronger by the day 😆

A strong sense of Deja Vu came over me when I went to find my company, but this time the reaction was completely different. This time I have actually heard of my company, Downer EDI, as they are known on the ASX. I originally thought they were purely a mining company, but as I searched their website I realised they are an integrated services group, who do a lot more than just mining. I find it strange I didn’t know this as I looked at Downer when I went to purchases my first lot of shares last year. Clearly I didn’t look too far into what they do.

The foundations were laid down for downer in the 1800’s with the founding’s of John Walker and Co ( my mind immediately went to scotch there), Clyde Engineering in Australia and the Public Works and Electrical Telegraph Departments in New Zealand.

The Electrical Telegraph Department and the Post Office merged to create NZ Post and Telegraph Department (P&T). P&T as well as the Public Works Department formed Downer & Co in 1933. Clyde Engineering was taken over by Evans Deakin Industries. Walkers Limited was sold to Evans Deakin Industries in 1980, which in 2001 was sold to Downer Group. The company was still NZ based until , Roche Brothers, one of the largest mining companies in, was purchased by Downer in 1997. This purchase formed the Downer Mining business that exists today. Downer was then listed on the ASX in 1998.

Downer has acquired quite a few companies over the years with the latest being Hawkins, one of NZ’s largest construction firms and an 88% controlling interest in SPOTLESS both happening in 2017.

There is a lot more to the history of downer group, take a look at https://www.downergroup.com/company-history. I am actually very excited to delve deeper into this company. Who knows, they might be on my watchlist for shares to purchases after this.

I’ll blog again after I go over the annual reports.

Lisa.

Hello Term 2!

I can’t fully concentrate at this stage as I’m impatiently waiting certification of grades day. I still check every morning even though I know it’s not Friday the 12th yet. Out of the 4 subjects I completed last term, the only thing I am really eager to see is if Peerwise has stood between me and a HD for ACCT11059. By my unofficial calculations I have just scraped through for a HD. How bloody trivial has my mind decided to be!. Needless to stay I’m determined to get full marks for Peerwise this term.

ACCT11081 has begun for me this week. I read the relevant material and started on my KCQ’s. I did a little Peerwising and now I’m obviously writing this blog post. Then the decision will be which unit to start on next. I spent all of last week organising my folders and books and looking at moodle with a perplexed look, thinking ‘ what have I gotten myself into…………….again’. I did this in term 1, so clearly it’s just what I do now. I also did some bookwork and end of year stuff for my husband’s business so I guess I did actually achieve something other than staring at the computer all week. My 3 other subjects are STAT11048, LAWS11030 and FINC11001. I have 4 exams scheduled for this term………………. if the euphoria of completing them is anything like after I completed the 2 I had last term, than I look forward to them.

Anyway, I like to ramble as you can see. I am to stay active on the blog this term. Last term I feel like I got snowed under and the blog became essential postings only. It will more than likely happen again, but hey you have to aim high right!

Happy studying to you all,

Lisa.

PS. My blog intro thing says I’m an avid beer, wine and scotch lover. I totally am but the irony is I am 8 days into dry July with plans of extended sobriety. Just a little bit of useless information for you all.

And I feel fine!

Who am I kidding. This has been my favourite subject. I mean, I may have spent the better half of assessment two lurking in the shadows, but I still think the interaction in this unit is by far the reason most of us will do well. I’m so glad I chose it as one of my first four units of my undergrad.

I have attached my draft work of steps 7-10. No feedback done as yet which I’m hoping to start after I post this. I get so nervous about providing feedback. I want my feedback to be of value to my peers, so I spend way too much time overthinking it which leads to procrastination. This leads to thinking about the fact I will have four exams instead of two next term if I do four subjects again. Four is a such a challenge but if I pass all four this term, I’m determined to get my shit together better to be able to do four again next term.

Anyway, I wish you all the best in your future studies, it’s been an awesome journey so far and I hope to see some of you next term in ACCT11081.

Cheers,

Lisa.

Well well well, I write to you all on my 32nd birthday strangely content with spending my day studying. I have this assessment, an economics essay and 2 exams to go this term. I feel relatively calm about it all this week. A very different feeling to last week. My emotions ebb and flow but if I manage to pass all four of my first term subjects, I’m going to throw myself one hell of a party and then do it all again in term two. I have attached my ratio’s if anyone would like to take a look. I chose not to do the inventories as I believe the inventories my company holds are not then sold by the company, they are used in their operations. I have to do some more research but I think that’s what I’m going to stick with at this point as I have spent enough time re reading 2015-2018 reports.

Ps. I would apologies for my lack of blogging but I know how I am so I predict it won’t get much better.

I hope you are all tracking well.

Lisa.

Hello to anyone who is still actually following me, it’s been a long time between posts. I feel like I can breathe a little more comfortably now since I have submitted 2 major assessment pieces this week. One for economics and the other for organisational behaviour. However, this means I have shoved this subject into a dark corner until now. This is actually my favourite subject so go figure. Now I feel slightly uneasy about my workload. I feel like I have my shit together enough to be treading water but not enough think I won’t drown. Fingers crossed for a productive weekend.

I have attached where I am up to with restating so far and I hope to be completed that along with my KCQ’s for chapter 6 over the weekend. Any feedback is appreciated. I will endeavour to improve my communication skills over the coming weeks, but I highly doubt that is going to happen. If anyone wants to do my residential valuation for my property course, you can have it, but make sure it’s good because I want to get enough marks for it to not have to rely on the exam to pass that subject.

I hope you are all swimming along nicely.

I have been super quiet on here, trying to figure out how the hell to organise myself better (still). At the start of the week I didn’t think I would be writing this with a cast on my left arm……..more on that in a second.

My week started out with a list of goals and good intentions as always. After procrastinating all of last week, I declared break week my week.

We got a new kitchen installed Monday and Tuesday which is like the holy grail as we have been making do with a make shift kitchen for about 9 years. We gutted our old one a couple of years after we bought this heavily run down place to renovate it. Apparently when we gave it 3 years to complete the whole house the universe threw another time frame at us. 11 years later and we are finally starting to feel like this is home, which couldn’t have come at better time.

I have two essays I want to have completed by the end of next week which I have started but one is giving me the proverbial shits. I just need to put the time into it and do the best I can in order to make sure I have the best chance at passing these units. It’s all feeling a little overwhelming but fingers crossed at all comes together for me.

Last night was our last game of the season for TRL ( touch rugby league). I had a bad attitude towards my performance all season up until last week. I decided that it is only a bit of fun as everyone keeps saying and I finally enjoyed myself. So obviously I was excited to play last night. About 2 minutes from full time I decided to show everyone how fast I can run backwards. I don’t know if I tripped over the ground or my own legs, but I put my hand out to break my fall and fell back onto it. I got up and brushed myself off thinking I probably sprained it. Went off and told everyone it was ok. I thought it was. My youngest boy got me some ice and that didn’t help one bit. When we got in the car the pain got worse so I told my husband to take me to the hospital. I got an x-ray straight away and I didn’t really think it could be broken as I assumed it would be more painful. The doctor called me in and showed me the x-ray and what do you know, I fractured my radius and I did a good job as the break goes into the joint (this is my very first broken bone). The ortho will look at the x-ray to determine if I need a plate in it. I’m hoping it doesn’t. So now I wait with my temporary cast until the fracture clinic contacts me for the next step. AWESOME! It could always be worse.

I am trying to type with two hands but its proving a little painful at the moment so I typed chapter 4 KCQ’s with one hand. It’s literally going to be a long weekend. I have attached said document. It’s meant to be a first draft but I think the amount of hours I want to fit into my studies this weekend due to my lack of effort before today is going to mean its a final draft. Acceptance and I are going to get a bit more acquainted over the next couple of weeks.

I hope you are all going well with your studies 👍

Lisa.

Week 4.

The short story: Yuck

The long story:

Here I was thinking I had my shit together (I should know better by now). Then Monday came along. I had my plan for the week on paper, phhhttttttt. I spent all day Monday practically watching my computer run a full scan, which took close to 5 hours, then cleaning up my computer because it was so slow I couldn’t do anything. I did leave the house to watch my youngest run his 800m at school ( 1st ), then came back to stare at the computer again. Now I don’t know why I didn’t do some reading or anything else that I could have done, but I didn’t so moving on.

Tuesday was sports carnival for my youngest. I still managed to get a bit done, even though I was out all day. In case you were wondering, he had a clean sweep of all the events and was the fasted boy in the school again this year. Perfect result for his last year of primary school with nearly 1 second off his 100m PB. I used to feel like ‘that mum’ for gloating about his achievements, but the kid is so humble, I feel as though I have to talk about it because he won’t lol.

Wednesday consisted of me feeling sorry for myself because I may have had too much champagne to celebrate the results of the sports carnival. It was a good idea at the time. Not so much the next day. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result – insanity. I must remember this 😒

Thursday. Not much interesting here because I got 8 hours of study in so started to feel semi ok with my progress for the week.

Friday was cross country for both children. The youngest won with another PB and my eldest came in 8th out of his year 9 peers and made the cross country team for the first time. If only he gave his attitude and behaviour the same effort he gave that run. My husband tells me I don’t get it because I am an only child and wasn’t a teenage boy once 🤷‍♀️.

Saturday. My brain decided I didn’t know how to comprehend anything so I spent the day reading things that made no sense. This was after 10 hours sleep because clearly learning is exhausting and I’m not used to it 😆

Today has been my most productive day of the week. Just about to hit submit on my assessment and feeling really nervous, but I’m sure it will be fine, even though I’m heavily questioning my KCQ’s.

School holidays start tomorrow and I am hoping to be able to lock myself in my office for 60 hours this week. Must move kettle and coffee into office.

Here is hoping we all get marks we are happy with on our assessments.

Lisa.

Well i’ll be, the end of week three.

I feel like an old hand at this uni thing at the moment, I also feel like I am sinking further into the quicksand. Hello irony.

This has been my busiest week so far, it’s like the universe is all ‘ Hey Lisa, we are just going to keep piling things on you to see how long it takes you to crack’. Well I’m pleased to say it hasn’t happened this week.

Tuesdays are my ‘ I regret ever deciding to do this’ day. For the last three Tuesdays giving up seemed like a far better option. I always tell my children the importance of a good work ethic in life. I guess I better follow my own lead or something blah blah blah.

Come Friday though, I’m on cloud nine. The early morning wake ups to fit in some quiet study time before my husband and seek and destroy (terms of endearment for my boys) wake up and the no minute wasted approach has worked yet again. I’m some what up to date with my studies and all is good in the world again.

In case you were wondering where this is going, it is leading into a story about mental toughness.

My 14 year old had his first amateur fight on Saturday night. I’m sure people have very differing opinions on boxing as a sport, but the way Boxing Queensland run their tournaments, you would be more likely to get hurt during a game of chess. He didn’t get the win. It appeared his fitness let him down. To be fair he has only been training specifically for boxing since October last year. A friend of his asked him to come along to a new boxing gym. It is all ages and I tagged along too for a bit of fitness. The coach approached me after a week and said how much potential he saw in my son. Of course, me being me said ‘ Great, another sport to spend too much money on’. I will say though, I wouldn’t have it any other way. He had the first round and half of the second, then all of a sudden he was gassed. This kid isn’t unfit. He was buggered, sure, but the ref called the fight not long before the end of the third (final) round because he couldn’t keep going. His opponent deserved the win, but my point is the mind will give up far before the body ever will. It’s been a case of ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’ with our eldest, but last night he learnt a valuable lesson. He let himself think he was done and at that moment his mind told his body to quit. He came to me with the same notion this morning. He ran 4 km this afternoon.

I apply this back to my study, its freaking hard, its meant to be. Not everyone has the opportunity to be doing this. Mental toughness is something we can all work on and at the end of the day it’s up to us to just keep doing the work.

I probably got completely off track in this blog. If you are still reading, I apologise for waffling. I’m getting pretty good at it though, I feel. I haven’t had the chance to get onto step 6 yet, but that’s an issue for tomorrow.

I hope you all had a great week three and let’s see what week four brings. 😁