Host School of the module: Finance and Accounting.

Coursework Title

James is 35 years old and has recently got married to Jane; the couple have a child, Julie. They live outside London in a property worth £1,000,000, with a mortgage of £400,000. They do not plan to move in the near future. James is paid £100,000 per year, and they are unsure whether Jane will go back to work after her maternity leave. She used to earn £35,000 per year.

They also have £75,000 in pension plans and an additional £300,000 in various investment accounts, in joint names. These investments are a combination of cash (5%), corporate bond funds (35%) and equity funds (60%). James feels that returns have been too low, and would like to achieve higher returns, while maintaining a degree of liquidity for future expenditure.

He is willing to consider riskier investments.

1. a) As their wealth manager, what further information would you require from James and Jane with respect to their investment objectives and constraints? (15 marks)
2. b) How would you assess the couple’s joint risk appetite in the light of James’ willingness to consider riskier investments? (15 marks)
3. c) What vehicles would you recommend to the couple to optimise their financial resources? Explain fully what options the couple have and what your recommendations are (50 marks)
4. d) Explain how the couple can assess the performance of their investments (10 marks)

10 marks for presentation

Maximum word count: 2500, excluding Abstract and References section

Credit will be given for effective planning, analytical ability, depth of analysis, awareness of the strengths and limitations of the information produced, logical flow of ideas, relevance and well written presentation. Students must demonstrate relevant skills in utilizing the Bloomberg database to undertake research or conduct an exploratory study in the area of banking.

Coursework criteria: assignment weighting.

Evidence of extensive and appropriate reading	20
Evidence of understanding the key issues	40
Critical reflection and relation of theory to practice	10
Relevance of materials and appropriate referencing	20
Overall presentation	10

 

Coursework presentation:

• An electronic copy of your assignment should be submitted in Word format via the module Blackboard site.
• The assignment should be properly labelled with your last name and student ID
• The coursework should have a cover page, which includes the Module title and code and word count.
• The coursework must not be longer than 2,500 words (excluding reference list and cover page)
• Use font size 12 Arial and 1.5 line spacing.
• Upon submission, the assignment will be checked via Turnitin for plagiarism.

Referencing requirements for assignments.

Statements, assertions and ideas made in coursework should be supported by citing relevant sources. Sources cited in the text should be listed at the end of the assignment in a reference list. Any material that you read but do not cite in the report should go into a separate bibliography. All referencing should be in Westminster Harvard format. If you are not sure about this, the library provides guidance (available via the library website pages).

The pass mark for the module is 50%. To pass overall, the minimum mark for each assessment is 35%. (If your mark for an assessment is under 35%, you will be required to complete a referral assessment and your mark for that will be capped at 50%).

Difficulties in submitting assignments on time.

If you have difficulties for reasons beyond your control (e.g. serious illness, family problems etc.) that prevent you from submitting the assignment, make sure you apply to the Mitigating Circumstances board with evidence to support your claim as soon as possible. The WBS Registry or your personal tutor can advise on this. 

Submitting your coursework – checks.

You must include your name, student ID and word count on the first page of your assignment.  Unless indicated otherwise, coursework is submitted via Blackboard. On the Blackboard home page for the module you will find a button on the menu called “Submit Coursework”. Clicking this will take you to the submission link.

At busy times the coursework submission process may run slowly. To ensure that your submission is not recorded as a late submission, avoid submitting very close to the deadline. To submit your assignment:

1. Log on to Blackboard at http://learning.westminster.ac.uk;
2. Go to the Blackboard site for this module;
3. Click on the ‘Submit Coursework’ link in the navigation menu on the left-hand side;
4. Click on the link for the assignment;
5. Follow the instructions.

REMEMBER: It is a requirement that you submit your work in this way. All coursework must be submitted by 13.00 (1.00 pm) UK time on the due date. If you submit your coursework late but within 24 hours or one “working” day of the specified deadline, 10% of the overall marks available for that assessment will be deducted as a penalty for late submission, except for work which is marked in the range 50-59%, in which case the mark will be capped at the pass mark (50%).

If you submit your coursework more than 24 hours or more than one “working” day after the specified deadline you will be given a mark of zero.  The University’s mitigating circumstances procedures relating to the non-submission or late submission of coursework apply to all coursework. If you are unclear about this, speak to your class leader or module leader.

Academic integrity.

What you submit for assessment must be your own current work. It will automatically be scanned through a text matching system to check for possible plagiarism. Do not reuse material from other assessments that you may have completed on other modules. Collusion with other students (except when working in groups), recycling previous assignments (unless this is explicitly allowed by the module leader) and/or plagiarism (copying) of other sources all are offences and are dealt with accordingly. If you are not sure about this, then speak to your module leader.

University of Westminster Quality & Standards statement:

Plagiarism is a particular form of cheating. Plagiarism must be avoided at all costs and students who break the rules, however innocently, will be penalised. It is your responsibility to ensure that you understand correct referencing practices. As a University level student, you are expected to use appropriate references and keep carefully detailed notes of all your sources of material, including any material downloaded from the www.

Plagiarism is defined as submission for assessment of material (written, visual or oral) originally produced by another person or persons, without acknowledgement, in such a way that the work could be assumed to be your own. Plagiarism may involve the unattributed use of another person’s work, ideas, opinions, theory, facts, statistics, graphs, models, paintings, performance, computer code, drawings, quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words, or paraphrases of another person’s spoken or written words. Plagiarism covers both direct copying and copying or paraphrasing with only minor adjustments:

• A direct quotation from a text must be indicated by the use of quotation marks (or an indented paragraph in italics for a substantive section) and the source of the quote (title, author, page number and date of publication) provided;
• A paraphrased summary must be indicated by attribution of the author, date and source of the material including page numbers for the section(s) which have been summarised.