Assessing Financial Position & Performance (AQA A Level Business): Exam Questions

Source A: Greggs plc

Greggs plc is the UK's largest food-to-go retailer. It began as a single bakery in Newcastle upon Tyne and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1984. It is now part of the FTSE 250 and is led by chief executive Roisin Currie.

Greggs sells sausage rolls, bakes, sandwiches, hot drinks and sweet items at prices deliberately set below those of most high street rivals. It calls itself a value retailer, but says that value comes from quality as well as price, and points to freshly prepared food, hot options and the ability for customers to customise their order. In December 2025 it held 8.6% of all visits in the UK food-to-go market and was rated the country's leading food-to-go brand.

The business has grown by making itself easier to reach. It opened 121 net new shops in 2025, ending the year with 2 739, and says there is a clear opportunity for significantly more than 3 000 UK shops in the longer term. Alongside the shops it has pushed three other ways to reach the customer. Delivery now accounts for 6.8% of sales in company-managed shops. Evening trade is the fastest growing part of the day. The Greggs App was scanned in 26.7% of transactions in 2025, up from 20.1% in 2024, and customers who use the App shop at Greggs more often. The company has also started selling through grocers, launching a Bake-at-Home range with Tesco and widening its range in Iceland.

That growth has been expensive. Capital spending peaked at £287.5 million in 2025 as Greggs built two new national distribution centres, at Derby and Kettering, lifting its logistics capacity to 3 500 shops. Capital spending is expected to fall to around £200 million in 2026. Greggs also made £13.0 million of structural cost savings during 2025 and holds a net cash position of £45.8 million.

The company says its key focus is restoring its return on capital employed to a target of around 20%.

Source: Greggs plc preliminary results, 3 March 2026

Appendix A: Greggs plc selected financial results

Source: Greggs plc

Assess whether Greggs plc's operating profit margin indicates that 2025 was a more successful year than 2024.

Calculate Greggs plc's underlying operating profit margin in 2025 to support your answer.

Give your answer to one decimal place.

Source A: Games Workshop Group PLC

Games Workshop Group PLC designs, makes and sells fantasy miniatures, and the games and stories that go with them. Its main brand is Warhammer. The company is based at Willow Road in Nottingham, where it makes its models, and it is a public limited company whose shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange. Kevin Rountree is the chief executive. It employs about 3 000 people.

The company earns money in two quite different ways. Most of it comes from the core business: selling miniatures and books through its own shops, through independent retailers it calls trade accounts, and through its own website. The rest comes from licensing, which means letting other companies pay to use Warhammer characters and worlds in their own products, such as video games and television.

In the 52 weeks to 31 May 2026 the core business had its best year yet. Core revenue rose 10.9% to £626.8 million and core operating profit rose to £245.1 million. Licensing went the other way. Licensing revenue fell from £52.5 million to £32.9 million, and licensing operating profit fell from £49.5 million to £29.9 million.

Licensing matters more than its size suggests. It costs very little to run, because the company is selling permission rather than a product, so almost all of the revenue it brings in becomes profit.

Total revenue still reached a record £659.7 million and profit before tax a record £275.7 million. Earnings per share rose from 594.9p to 624.0p. Even so, the dividend paid during the year fell from 520p a share to 485p.

Games Workshop says its decisions are focused on long-term success rather than short-term gains, and that it intends to carry on making the best fantasy miniatures in the world forever.

Source: Games Workshop Group PLC results, 28 July 2026

Appendix A: Games Workshop Group PLC selected financial results

Source: Games Workshop Group PLC

Appendix B: Games Workshop Group PLC earnings, dividends and cash

• Earnings per share = 624.0p in 2026 (594.9p in 2025)

• Dividends per share declared and paid during the year = 485p in 2026 (520p in 2025)

• Net increase in cash before dividends paid = £210.3m in 2026 (£197.5m in 2025)

• Cash held at the end of the year = £182.9m

Source: Games Workshop Group PLC and Companies House

Assess whether Games Workshop Group PLC was right to cut its dividend from 520p to 485p a share in a year when its earnings per share rose.

Source B: Big Issue Media Ltd

Big Issue Media Limited publishes The Big Issue, a weekly magazine sold on the street by people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. The company was set up in 1991 and is part of a group of 16 companies known as the Big Issue Group. It is a social enterprise: it trades like any other business, but it exists to create work for its vendors rather than to pay outside shareholders.

The selling model is unusual. Vendors buy copies of the magazine from Big Issue Media Limited at half the cover price, then sell them at the full price and keep the difference. A vendor is not an employee. What they earn depends entirely on how many copies they sell, so the number of magazines moving through the business is also the number that decides whether a vendor can pay their rent.

That number has been falling. Fewer people carry cash, fewer people buy print magazines, and the streets are quieter than they were. In the year to 31 March 2025 turnover fell by 37.1% to £3.92 million. The company cut its workforce from 74 people to 56. Cash at the bank fell to £297 000 and net assets fell by 43.6% to £630 000. Appendix D shows how the business changed.

The directors are considering two ways forward. They could raise the cover price, which would give each vendor more money for every copy sold. Or they could push more sales through the Big Issue app and website, which costs less to run but cuts the vendors out of the sale. Appendix F sets out the two options.

Source: information sourced from Companies House, 2026

Appendix E: Information on the economics of the magazine

Source: Analyst

Assess whether Big Issue Media Ltd can cover its costs by selling the magazine alone.

Calculate the break-even output in copies per year to support your answer.

Source A: MJ Gleeson plc

MJ Gleeson plc builds houses. It is a public limited company listed on the London Stock Exchange and it works in two quite different ways. Gleeson Homes builds and sells houses, mainly in the North of England and the Midlands. Gleeson Land buys options on farmland, obtains planning permission and sells the land on to other housebuilders.

What makes Gleeson unusual is who it sells to. It builds the lowest-priced new homes in Britain and says its average selling price is 34% lower than the average new build price in the regions where it works. In the year to 30 June 2025, 78% of the homes it sold were affordable to a couple both earning the National Living Wage. Many of its buyers are first-time buyers who would otherwise be renting.

The year was a difficult one. Group revenue rose 5.9% to £365.8 million and the company sold 1 793 homes, only 21 more than the year before. The average selling price rose 4.3% to £193 600, but almost all of that came from building a different mix of houses rather than from charging more for the same house: underlying price growth was just 0.6%.

Costs went the other way. The gross margin at Gleeson Homes fell from 24.1% to 20.7%, and its operating profit fell 26.4% to £22.3 million. Gleeson Land had a much better year, completing seven land sales and lifting its operating profit from £2.2 million to £7.0 million, but it is far too small to make up the difference. Group profit before tax fell 17.3% to £20.5 million.

The company built from fewer places. Active build sites fell from 79 to 68, while the land pipeline grew slightly to 19 638 plots. Gleeson holds a medium-term target of building 3 000 homes a year, which is well above the 1 793 it managed this year.

Money left the business. Gleeson began the year with net cash of £12.9 million and ended it with net borrowings of £0.8 million, having held its dividend at 11.0p a share even though earnings per share fell from 33.13p to 27.11p.

Source: MJ Gleeson plc audited results for the year ended 30 June 2025, 16 September 2025

Appendix A: MJ Gleeson plc selected results

Source: MJ Gleeson plc

Assess whether MJ Gleeson plc's sales performance improved in 2025.

Calculate the number of homes sold per active build site in 2025 to support your answer.

Give your answer to one decimal place.

Source A: Good Energy Group plc

Good Energy Group plc sells electricity and gas to homes and businesses, and it installs solar panels, heat pumps and batteries. It is a public limited company and its shares are traded on AIM.

The electricity it sells is bought from a community of more than 2 500 independent renewable generators, many of them small: wind turbines, solar farms and hydro schemes. Good Energy is an accredited B Corp, the only domestic energy supplier in the United Kingdom to hold that certification, with an impact score of 118.5. B Corp certification is awarded to companies that meet standards on social and environmental performance, and it has to be re-earned.

The year to 31 December 2024 looked strange on the face of it. Revenue fell 29.3% to £180.07 million, down from £254.7 million. Profit before tax rose 16.0% to £6.59 million, and profit after tax rose 64.9% to £4.75 million. The company took less money and kept more of it.

The explanation lies outside the business. Wholesale energy prices rose sharply after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and then fell back, and the Ofgem price cap on what a domestic supplier may charge followed them up and down. Appendix B shows the cap. When the price a supplier charges falls, its revenue falls with it, even if it is serving exactly the same customers.

The company is also changing what it does. During the year it bought JPS, which installs heat, solar and storage across southern England, and it completed the acquisition of Amelio Enterprises Limited. Installing equipment is a different business from supplying energy: it is a one-off sale rather than a monthly bill, and it is not capped by Ofgem.

One thing sits awkwardly alongside the B Corp badge. Good Energy also sells gas, which is a fossil fuel, to customers who have gas boilers. It cannot make gas renewable in the way it can make electricity renewable, and every gas customer it keeps is a household it is not selling a heat pump to.

Source: information sourced from Good Energy Group plc results for the year ended 31 December 2024

Appendix A: Good Energy Group plc selected results

Source: Good Energy Group plc

Appendix B: The Ofgem energy price cap

• The figures are the cap that applied in April of each year for a typical household paying by direct debit. In April 2023 the government's Energy Price Guarantee meant most households actually paid about £2 500 rather than the capped £3 280.

• Ofgem reduced its assumption of typical household consumption in late 2023, so figures either side of that point are not perfectly comparable.

Source: Ofgem

Assess whether 2024 was a more successful year for Good Energy Group plc than 2023.

Calculate Good Energy Group plc's profit for the year margin in 2024 to support your answer.

Give your answer to one decimal place.

Source A: Nationwide Building Society

Nationwide is the world's largest building society and the second largest mortgage lender in the United Kingdom. It is a mutual, which means it has no shareholders. It is owned by its members, who are the people who bank, save or hold a mortgage with it, and in principle every member is an owner. Nobody outside the membership has a claim on its profit.

That changes what profit is for. A listed bank divides its profit between dividends to shareholders and money kept in the business. Nationwide has no shareholders to pay, so it keeps almost all of its profit in the business to build its financial strength, and gives value to members in two other ways. The first is pricing, through better savings rates and lower mortgage rates. In the year to 31 March 2025 it put this at £1 795 million of member financial benefit, which is its estimate of how much better off its members were than they would have been with a typical high street bank. The second is direct payments: £1 000 million paid to eligible members through the Fairer Share Payment and a one-off reward called The Big Nationwide Thank You. Both reach members before profit is calculated, so neither is paid out of profit.

The year was a large one. On 1 October 2024 Nationwide completed the acquisition of Virgin Money, a bank with its own customers, brand and business lending arm. Statutory profit before tax rose to £2 302 million from £1 776 million, even after the direct payments to members. The rise was mainly due to a one-off accounting gain of £2.3 billion on buying Virgin Money, which arose because the assets acquired were valued at more than the £2.8 billion price. Underlying profit before tax, which leaves out one-off items and the direct payments, fell to £1 852 million from £2 003 million, which the society put down to its decision to pay members better rates. Total underlying income reached £5.2 billion, and Pay.UK switching data for the nine months to December 2024 showed more current account switchers moving to Nationwide than to any other brand.

Buying a bank is an unusual thing for a mutual to do. Virgin Money's customers did not choose a mutual, and integrating it will take years and a great deal of money. Every pound spent on that integration is a pound not returned to members this year, which is the tension the society is now living with.

Source: information sourced from Nationwide Building Society preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2025

Appendix A: Nationwide Building Society selected results

Source: Nationwide Building Society

Assess whether a rise in profit before tax is a sign of success for an organisation that has no shareholders.

Calculate the percentage change in Nationwide Building Society's statutory profit before tax to support your answer.

Give your answer to one decimal place.

Source A: Greggs plc

Greggs plc is the UK's largest food-to-go retailer. It began as a single bakery in Newcastle upon Tyne and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1984. It is now part of the FTSE 250 and is led by chief executive Roisin Currie.

Greggs sells sausage rolls, bakes, sandwiches, hot drinks and sweet items at prices deliberately set below those of most high street rivals. It calls itself a value retailer, but says that value comes from quality as well as price, and points to freshly prepared food, hot options and the ability for customers to customise their order. In December 2025 it held 8.6% of all visits in the UK food-to-go market and was rated the country's leading food-to-go brand.

The business has grown by making itself easier to reach. It opened 121 net new shops in 2025, ending the year with 2 739, and says there is a clear opportunity for significantly more than 3 000 UK shops in the longer term. Alongside the shops it has pushed three other ways to reach the customer. Delivery now accounts for 6.8% of sales in company-managed shops. Evening trade is the fastest growing part of the day. The Greggs App was scanned in 26.7% of transactions in 2025, up from 20.1% in 2024, and customers who use the App shop at Greggs more often. The company has also started selling through grocers, launching a Bake-at-Home range with Tesco and widening its range in Iceland.

That growth has been expensive. Capital spending peaked at £287.5 million in 2025 as Greggs built two new national distribution centres, at Derby and Kettering, lifting its logistics capacity to 3 500 shops. Capital spending is expected to fall to around £200 million in 2026. Greggs also made £13.0 million of structural cost savings during 2025 and holds a net cash position of £45.8 million.

The company says its key focus is restoring its return on capital employed to a target of around 20%.

Source: Greggs plc preliminary results, 3 March 2026

Appendix A: Greggs plc selected financial results

Source: Greggs plc

Appendix B: Greggs plc shops and sales channels

Source: Greggs plc, Circana

Appendix C: Greggs plc share price

Source: Greggs plc

Greggs plc aims to restore its return on capital employed to around 20%.

Evaluate two actions Greggs plc could take to reach this target and recommend which one it should take first.

Source B: Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd

Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd makes tableware: plates, bowls and serving dishes, thrown and glazed at a single factory in Lancashire. It is a private limited company owned by its two directors, Nadia Okonjo and Rob Hartley, and it employs 19 people.

It does not sell to the public. Its customers are restaurant groups, hotels and independent homeware shops, who order in batches and expect the same glaze to be available again in two years' time. Last year it fired and sold 77 500 pieces at an average price of £16.00, which brought in £1 240 000.

Two kilns do all the work. They cost £14 200 a month to run, staff, maintain and insure, and that is paid whether or not a single piece is fired. A third kiln would cost £180 000 and would let the company take the larger restaurant contracts it currently turns down.

The difficulty is not profit. The difficulty is when the money arrives. Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd's largest customers are restaurant groups, and they take 62 days to pay. Its own clay and glaze come from two small family firms, and Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd pays them within 30 days, because it always has. Finished inventory sits in the warehouse for about seven weeks before a customer calls it off.

Last year it made a gross profit of £558 000 on its £1 240 000 of revenue, once the £682 000 of clay, glaze, packaging and firing was paid for. Wages came to £298 000 and the kiln, factory, insurance and other fixed costs to £170 400, leaving a profit for the year of £89 600. It ended the year with £18 300 in the bank.

Appendix D: Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd cash flow forecast, April to June

Source: Analyst

Appendix E: Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd break-even chart

Source: Analyst

Appendix F: Data for two ways of paying for a third kiln

Source: Analyst

Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd made a profit of £89 600 last year and ended it with £18 300 in the bank.

Evaluate whether Calder Vale Ceramics Ltd should judge how well it is doing on its profit or on its cash position.

Source B: Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd

Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd grows apples on 180 acres in Herefordshire and turns them into juice and chutney in a press and kitchen on the same site. It is a private limited company run by Marianne Vance, whose family has farmed the land since 1954, and it employs 26 people, more in the picking season.

It sells in two ways. Its own-brand juice and chutney go to farm shops, delicatessens and garden centres, and brought in £2.1 million last year. Bulk apples it does not need go to a large juice processor, which brought in £1.1 million. Total revenue was £3.2 million.

Its own orchards do not produce enough. Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd buys a further 3 380 tonnes of apples a year from fourteen contract growers, all of them small farms within thirty miles. It pays them £142 a tonne. The published market rate last year was £168 a tonne, and Appendix E shows how that gap has widened. The growers accept it because Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd takes the whole crop, pays within fourteen days and has done so for years. Its own customers, the farm shops and delicatessens, take about 45 days to settle.

The land is worth £4.6 million. Together with the buildings, press and kitchen, capital employed is £5.4 million. Against that, operating profit last year was £310 000 and profit before tax, after £64 000 of interest, was £246 000.

Marianne Vance has been offered a contract by a supermarket for 900 000 bottles of own-label juice a year at £1.10 a bottle. Her own brand sells at £2.40. The press currently runs at about 40% of what it could do.

Appendix D: Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd, summary of last year

Source: Analyst

Appendix E: What Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd pays its growers, against the market rate

Source: Analyst

Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd made an operating profit of £310 000 on capital employed of £5 400 000, of which £4 600 000 is the value of its land.

Evaluate whether Marianne Vance should judge Thorne Valley Orchards Ltd on the profit it makes or on the return it earns on the land it owns.