References on the seminar at Novolipetsk Seel JSC by the leading specialists of the company.

«The seminar The Practice of Financial Analysis and Evaluation of Investment Projects was held at NLMK on April, 19-21, 2005. The seminar was conducted by Irina Koltsova, a consultant for Alt-Invest. She presented practical calculations on the investments efficiency estimation in various sectors of the economy. There were a lot of examples from practice reviewed during the training, and calculations on these projects were done during 2001-2004.

The seminar lasted for three days. The first day was devoted to general information about the types, stages of investment projects; description of schemes for their implementation, as well as to the methods of collecting and structuring the initial information for calculations. Introductory part helped to highlight features of realizing Green Field projects, as well as those at the operating enterprise. And the differences between investments for various purposes were examined:

• production expansion;
• products quality improvement;
• costs reduction.

It was also noted that marketing research is very important for determining the need of the market for the new product, identifying the competitive environment, potential problems in sales, expansion of distribution geography.

The consultant also identified the most common mistakes in the primary evaluation of investments at the point of collection and analysis of initial information.

Second day was devoted directly to the calculations on the investments efficiency. There were examined the characteristics of projects’ efficiency evaluation for different stakeholders (owner, bank, management). Specific examples, which show common mistakes in calculating the economic effect after the project implementation and its payback period; and methods of determining the value of the operating enterprise were also studied.

Third day was devoted to the analysis of financial condition of the enterprise and practice, when on the specific example we calculated the basic ratios of the investment project. The main attention was paid to the interconnections in the economy of the enterprise, and the impact of the development on the financial performance of the company.

At the seminar I have got structured, concise and valuable information, which, along with the knowledge acquired before, will help me estimate the efficiency of financial investments.»

М.A. Preduschenko, Senior Economist, Economic Analysis and Forecast Department

«During the seminar the basic ideas and concepts of investment projects evaluation and methodological approaches to the company’s financial condition analysis were reviewed. Competent and accessible presentation of the material was accompanied by the comments and examples.

Extensive set of methodical materials was illustrating the issues, which eased the perception of such amount of information and made studying of methods of projects evaluation and economic and financial analysis of company’s activity more interesting.

Case study on the investment project evaluation provided better understanding of the material, but unfortunately we did not have enough time in the program for studying this issue.

The seminar was interesting and quite effective to review and study commercial evaluation of investment projects according to the approaches adopted in world practice.

However, we suggest giving more time for the practice on specific investment projects.»

S.S. Dvurechenskaya, Chief of the Cold-Rolled Carbon Steel Economics Bureau

«In my opinion, positive results of the seminar were provided by:

• the “hot” topic for all participants, without exception, and as a result, the opportunity of using new information in everyday work;
• the volume and completeness of theoretical information, proper examples, reinforcing certain aspects of investment policy; especially I’d like to point out the focus on the methodology for efficiency evaluation of projects realized at the operating enterprise;
• the presentation form. The whole seminar kit (textbooks, manuals) was given individually to each participant with a margin of time. In this regard, firstly, we had an opportunity to study specified topic in details, prepare questions, and secondly, we did not have to write down key information.

As requests:

1) to increase the time for practice, considering that each participant has a personal computer;

2) to set in the plan of the seminar additional time for the discussion of the practice results».

O.A. Sakir, Senior Economist of the Dynamo Steel Economics Bureau