Question: A small manufacturing firm, which has limited

> New Age Telecomm is a young, high-growth telecommunications firm. It pays no dividends, although the average dividend payout for other firms in the telecommunications sector is 40%. Is New Age paying too little in dividends? Why or why not?

> Lockheed, one of the largest defense contractors in the United States, reported EBITDA of $1,290 million in a recent financial year, prior to interest expenses of $215 million and depreciation charges of $400 million. Capital expenditures amounted to $45

> WeeMart, a retailer of children’s clothes, announces a cut in dividends following a year in which both revenues and earnings dropped significantly. How would you expect its stock price to react? Explain.

> Assuming that you do the analysis in Problem 8 with both firm value and operating income, what are the reasons for the differences you might find in the results, using each? When would you use one over the other.

> You have been called in as a consultant for Herbert’s a sporting goods retail firm, which is examining its debt policy. The firm currently has a balance sheet as follows: The firm’s income statement is as follows: The

> Vernon Enterprises has current after-tax operating income of $100 million and a cost of capital of 10%. The firm earns a return on capital equal to its cost of capital. a. Assume that the firm is in stable growth, growing 5% a year forever; estimate the

> Assume now that Office Helpers decides to go public and would like to offer its shares at a target price of $10 per share. If the IPO is likely to be underpriced by 20%, how many shares should the firm have?

> The lining of a plating tank must be replaced every three years at the cost of approximately $2,000. A new lining material has been developed that is more resistant to the corrosive effects of the plating liquid and will cost approximately $4,000. If the

> You have estimated the following cash flows on a project: Plot the NPV profile for this project. What is the IRR? If the cost of equity is 16%, would you accept this project? Year Cash Flow to Equity (S) -5,000,000 4,000,000 1 2 4,000,000 3 -3,000,00

> The following table summarizes the percentage changes in operating income, percentage changes in revenue, and betas for four pharmaceutical firms. a. Calculate the degree of operating leverage for each of these firms. b. Use the operating leverage to exp

> Assume that the average variance of return for an individual security is 50% and that the average covariance is 10%. What is the expected variance of a portfolio of 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 securities. How many securities need to be held before the risk of

> In recent years, top managers have been given large packages of options, giving them the right to buy stock in the firm at a fixed price. Will these compensation schemes make managers more responsive to stockholders? Why or why not? Are lenders to the fi

> Would your answer be different for the previous problem if JC Automobiles were a large firm followed by thirty-five analysts? Why or why not?

> Tech Products, from Question 7, pays a dividend of $40 million. Assuming that the firm started the period with no cash, how did it raise the funding for the dividend payment?

> Union Pacific Railroad reported net income of $770 million after interest expenses of $320 million in a recent financial year. (The corporate tax rate was 36%.) It reported depreciation of $960 million in that year, and capital spending was $1.2 billion.

> Repeat the analysis in Problem 7 for a private firm that has provided you with the following estimates of operating income for the 10 years, for which you have the macroeconomic data: Operating Income Year (in dollars thousands) 1985 463.05 1986 411.

> BMD is a firm with no debt on its books currently anda market value of equity of $2 billion. On the basis of its EBITDA of $200 million, it can afford to have a debt ratio of 50%, at which level the firm value should be $300 million higher. a. Assuming t

> GenCorp, an automotive parts manufacturer, currently has $25 million in outstanding debt and has 10 million shares outstanding. The book value per share is $10, and the market price per share is $25. The company is currently rated A, its bonds have a yie

> Office Helpers is a private firm that manufactures and sells office supplies. The firm has limited capital and is estimated to have a value of $80 million with the capital constraints. A venture capitalist is willing to contribute $20 million to the firm

> You are helping a bookstore decide whether it should open a coffee shop on the premises. The details of the investment are as follows: • The coffee shop will cost $50,000 to open; it will have a five-year life and be depreciated straight line over the pe

> You are provided with the following cash flows on a project: Plot the net present value (NPV) profile for this project. What is the IRR? If this firm had a cost of capital of 10% and a cost of equity of 15%, would you accept this project? Year Operat

> You are analyzing the beta for Hewlett Packard and have broken down the company into four broad business groups, with market values and betas for each group. a. Estimate the beta for Hewlett Packard as a company. Is this beta going to be equal to the bet

> Consider the project described in Problem 6. Assume that the firm plans to finance 40% of its net capital expenditure and working capital needs with debt. a. Estimate the cash flow to equity for each of the four years. b. Estimate the payback period for

> Companies outside the United States often have two classes of stock outstanding. One class of shares is voting and is held by the incumbent managers of the firm. The other class is nonvoting and represents the bulk of traded shares. What are the conseque

> Now assume that Gemco Jewelers has $10 million in cash and non-operating assets and that the firm has $15 million in outstanding debt. a. Estimate the value of equity in the firm. b. If the firm has 5 million shares outstanding, estimate the value of equ

> JC Automobiles is a small auto parts manufacturing firm that has paid $1.00 in annual dividends each year for the past five years. It announces that dividends will increase to $1.25 next year. What would you expect the price reaction to be? Why? If your

> You are attempting to structure a debt issue for Eaton Corporation, a manufacturer of automotive components. You have collected the following information on the market values of debt and equity for the past 10 years: In addition, you have the following i

> Plastico, a manufacturer of consumer plastic products, is evaluating its capital structure. The balance sheet of the company is as follows (in millions): In addition, you are provided the following information: • The debt is in the form

> UB is examining its capital structure with the intent of arriving at an optimal debt ratio. It currently has no debt and has a beta of 1.5. The riskless interest rate is 9%. Your research indicates that the debt rating will be as follows at different deb

> You are considering the possibility of replacing an existing machine that has a book value of $500,000, a remaining depreciable life of five years, and a salvage value of $300,000. The replacement machine will cost $2 million and have a 10-year life. Ass

> Antitakeover amendments can be in the best interests of stockholders. Under what conditions is this likely to be true?

> Geotech Inc., which has had a history of high growth and pays no dividends, announces that it will start paying dividends next quarter. How would you expect its stock price to react to the announcement? Why?

> Gemco Jewelers earned $5 million in after-tax operating income in the most recent year. The firm also had capital expenditures of $4 million and depreciation of $2 million during the year, and the noncash working capital at the end of the year was $10 mi

> Now assume that Lube Oil has a return on equity of 5% and a cost of equity of 10%. As a stockholder in Lube Oil, would you want the firm to change its dividend policy? Why or why not?

> Assume now that you have uncovered the following facts about the types of projects STL takes: • The projects are primarily infrastructure projects, requiring large initial investments and long gestation periods. • Most of the new projects will be in emer

> You have been hired as a management consultant by AD Corporation to evaluate whether it has an appropriate amount of debt (the company is worried about a leveraged buyout). You have collected the following information on AD’s current po

> You have been asked to estimate the debt ratio for a firm with the following financing details: • The firm has two classes of shares outstanding: 50,000 shares of class A stock, with 2 voting rights per share, trading at $100 per share, and 100,000 share

> You have been hired as a capital budgeting analyst by a sporting goods firm that manufactures athletic shoes and has captured 10% of the overall shoe market (the total market is worth $100 million a year). The fixed costs associated with manufacturing th

> An income bondholder receives interest payments only if the firm makes income. If the firm does not make interest payments in a year, the interest is cumulated and paid in the first year the firm makes income. A preferred stock receives preferred dividen

> You are provided with the projected income statements for a project: • The tax rate is 40%. • The project required an initial investment of $15,000and an additional investment of $2,000 at the end of year 2. â&#1

> Assume that you have half of your money invested in Times Mirror, the media company, and the other half invested in Unilever, the consumer product giant. The expected returns and standard deviations on the two investments are summarized below: Estimate t

> You are interested in creating a portfolio of two stocks—Coca Cola and Texas Utilities. Over the last decade, an investment in Coca Cola stock would have earned an average annual return of 25%, with a standard deviation in returns of 36%. An investment i

> There are some corporate strategists who have suggested that firms focus on maximizing market share rather than market prices. When might this strategy work, and when might it fail?

> How would your answers to the last two questions change if you were told that Lube Oil started the year with $120 million in debt and ended the year with $135 million?

> UJ Gas is a utility that has followed a policy of increasing dividends every quarter by 5% over dividends in the prior year. The company announces that it will increase quarterly dividends from $1.00 to $1.02 next quarter. What price reaction would you e

> Under what conditions will the return on equity on a project be equal to the IRR, estimated from cash flows to equity investors, on the same project?

> Netsoft is a company that manufactures networking software. In the current year, the firm reported operating earnings before interest and taxes of $200 million (operating earnings does not include interest income), and these earnings are expected to grow

> STL has asked you for advice on putting together the details of the new debt issues it is planning to make. What information would you need to obtain to provide this advice?

> As CEO of a major corporation, you have to make a decision on how much you can afford to borrow. You currently have 10 million shares outstanding, and the market price per share is $50. You also currently have about $200 million in debt outstanding (mark

> You have been asked to calculate the debt ratio for a firm that has the following components to its financing mix: • The firm has 1 million shares outstanding, trading at $50 per share. • The firm has $25 million in straight debt, carrying a market inter

> You have just done a regression of monthly stock re- turns of HeavyTech, a manufacturer of heavy machinery, on monthly market returns over the past five years and come up with the following regression: The standard deviation of the stock is 50%, and the

> Maximizing stock prices does not make sense because investors focus on short-term results and not on the long-term consequences. Comment.

> You are analyzing a convertible preferred stock with the following characteristics for the security: • There are 50,000 preferred shares outstanding, with a face value of $100 and a 6% preferred dividend rate. • The firm has straight preferred stock outs

> Lube Oil, in Question 3, paid a dividend of $20 million and bought back $25 million in stock. Estimate how much the cash balance of the firm changed during the year.

> Cell Phone is a cellular firm that reported net income of $50 million in the most recent financial year. The firm had $1 billion in debt, on which it reported interest expenses of $100 million in the most recent financial year. The firm had depreciation

> DGF Corporation has come to you for some advice on how best to increase their leverage over time. In the most recent year, DGF had an EBITDA of $300 million, owed $1 billion in both book value and market value terms and had a net worth of $2 billion (the

> Plastico is interested in how it compares with its competitors in the same industry. a. Taking each of these variables, explain at an intuitive level whether you would expect Plastico to have more or less debt than its competitors and why. b. You have al

> Answer true or false to the following statements: a. The return on equity for a project will always be higher than the return on capital on the same project. b. If the return on capital is less than the cost of equity, the project should be rejected. c.

> Genting Berhad is a Malaysian conglomerate with holdings in plantations and tourist resorts. The beta estimated for the firm, relative to the Malaysian stock exchange, is 1.15, and the long-term local currency risk free rate in Malaysia is 11.5%. a. Esti

> You have been given the following information on a project: • It has a five-year lifetime • The initial investment in the project will be $25 million, and the investment will be depreciated straight line, down to a salvage value of $10 million at the end

> You are in a world where there are only two assets, gold and stocks. You are interested in investing your money in one, the other, or both assets. Consequently, you collect the following data on the returns on the two assets over the last six years. a.

> Stock prices are much too volatile for financial markets to be efficient. Comment.

> IOU has $5 billion in debt outstanding (carrying an interest rate of 9%) and 10 million shares trading at $50 per share. Based on its current EBIT of $200 million, its optimal debt ratio is only 30%. The firm has a beta of 1.20, and the current Treasury

> Plastico is considering a major change in its capital structure. It has three options: • Option 1: Issue $1 billion in new stock and repurchase half of its outstanding debt. This will make it an AAA-rated firm (AAA rated debt is yielding 11% in the marke

> You are analyzing a new security that has been promoted as equity, with the following features: • The dividend on the security is fixed in dollar terms for the life of the security, which is 20 years. • The dividend is not tax-deductible. • In the case o

> You own a rental building in the city and are interested in replacing the heating system. You are faced with the following alternatives: a. A solar heating system, which will cost $12,000 to install and $500 a year to run and will last forever (assume th

> Consider again the project described in Problem 1 (assume that the depreciation reverts to a straight line). Assume that 40% of the initial investment for the project will be financed with debt, with an annual interest rate of 10% and a balloon payment o

> Biogen, a biotechnology firm, had a beta of 1.70 in 1995. It had no debt outstanding at the end of that year. a. Estimate the cost of equity for Biogen, if the Treasury bond rate is 6.4%. b. What effect will an increase in long-term bond rates to 7.5% ha

> The following table summarizes the annual returns you would have made on two companies—Scientific Atlanta, a satellite and data equipment manufacturer, and AT&T, the telecomm giant, from 1988 to 1998. a. Estimate the average and sta

> Stockholders can transfer wealth from bondholders through a variety of actions. How would the following actions by stockholders transfer wealth from bondholders? a. An increase in dividends b. A leveraged buyout c. Acquiring a risky business How would bo

> In December 1995, Boise Cascade’s stock had a beta of 0.95. The Treasury bill rate at the time was 5.8%, and the Treasury bond rate was 6.4%. The firm had debt out- standing of $1.7 billion and a market value of equity of $1.5 billion; the corporate marg

> Consolidated Power is a regulated electric utility that has equity with a market value of $1.5 billion and debt outstanding of $3 billion. A consultant notes that this is a high debt ratio relative to the average across all firms, which is 27%, and sugge

> Unitrode, which makes analog/linear integrated circuits for power management, is a firm that has not used debt in the financing of its projects. The managers of the firm contend that they do not borrow money because they want to maintain financial flexib

> XYZ Pharma is a pharmaceutical company that traditionally has not used debt to finance its projects. Over the past 10 years, it has also reported high returns on its projects and growth and made substantial research and development expenses over the time

> Handy and Harman, a leading fabricator of precious metal alloys, pays out only 23% of its earnings as dividends. The average dividend payout ratio for metal fabricating firms is 45%. The average growth rate in earnings for the entire sector is 10% (Handy

> Assume that personal investors pay a 40% tax rate on interest income and only a 20% tax rate on equity income. If the corporate tax rate is 30%, estimate whether debt has a tax benefit, relative to equity. If a firm with no debt and $100 million in marke

> You are analyzing the dividend policy of Black and Decker, a manufacturer of tools and appliances. The following table summarizes the dividend payout ratios, yields, and expected growth rates of other firms in the waste disposal business. a. Compare Blac

> Between 1988 and 2013, we saw an increase in the percentage of cash returned to stockholders in the form of dividends. Why?

> A firm that has no debt has a market value of $100 million and a cost of equity of 11%. In the Miller–Modigliani world. a. what happens to the value of the firm as the leverage is changed (assume no taxes)? b. what happens to the cost of capital as the l

> You are an institutional investor and have collected the following information on five maritime firms to assess their dividend policies The average risk-free rate during the period was 7%, and the average return on the market was 12%. a. Assess which of

> You are analyzing Tiffany’s, an upscale retailer, and find that the regression estimate of the firm’s beta is 0.75; the standard error for the beta estimate is 0.50. You also note that the average unlevered beta of comparable specialty retailing firms is

> How would your answers to the previous problem change if Manpower is in plans to pay off its outstanding debt of $100 million next year and become a debt-free company?

> Nadir, an unlevered firm, has expected earnings before interest and taxes of $2 million per year. Nadir’s tax rate is 40%, and the market value is V = E = $12 million. The stock has a beta of 1, and the risk-free rate is 9%. [Assume tha

> Assess the likelihood that the following firms will be taken over, based on your understanding of the free cash flow hypothesis. You can assume that earnings and free cash flows are highly correlated. a. A firm with high-growth prospects, good projects,

> The chief financial officer of Adobe Systems, a software manufacturing firm, has approached you for some advice regarding the beta of his company. He subscribes to a service that estimates Adobe System’s beta each year, and he has noticed that the beta e

> Manpower, which provides nongovernment employment services in the United States, reported net income of $128 million in 1995. It had capital expenditures of $50 million and depreciation of $24 million in 1995, and its working capital was $500 million (on

> XCV, Inc., which manufactures automobile parts for assembly, is considering the costs and the benefits of leverage. The CFO notes that the return on equity of the firm, which is only 12.75% now based on the current policy of no leverage, could be increas

> Southwestern Bell, a phone company, is considering expanding its operations into the media business. The beta for the company at the end of 1995 was 0.90, and the debt-to-equity ratio was 1. The media business is expected to be 30% of the overall firm va

> You are comparing the dividend policies of three dividend-paying utilities. You have collected the following information on the ex-dividend behavior of these firms. If you were a tax-exempt investor, which company would you use to make â€&#156

> Accounting rates of return are based on accounting income and book value of investment, whereas internal rates of return are based on cash flows and take into account the time value of money. Under what conditions will the two approaches give you similar

> Assume that Cracker Barrel, from Problem 20, wants to continue with its policy of not paying dividends. You are the CEO of Cracker Barrel and have been confronted by dissident stockholders, demanding to know why you are not paying out your FCFE (estimate

> 21. A small, private firm has approached you for advice on its capital structure decision. It is in the specialty retailing business, and it had an EBIT last year of $500,000. • The book value of equity is $1.5 million, but the estimated market value is

> Answer true or false to the following questions relating to the free cash flow hypothesis (as developed by Jensen). a. Companies with high operating earnings have high free cash flows. b. Companies with large capital expenditures relative to earnings hav

> You are an analyst for a sporting goods corporation that is considering a new project that will take advantage of excess capacity in an existing plant. The plant has a capacity to produce 50,000 tennis racquets, but only 25,000 are being produced current

> As the result of stockholder pressure, RJR Nabisco is considering spinning off its food division. You have been asked to estimate the beta for the division and decide to do so by obtaining the beta of comparable publicly traded firms. The average beta of

> You have been asked to analyze a project where the analyst has estimated the return on capital to be 37% over the ten-year lifetime of the project. The cost of capital is only 12%, but you have concerns about using the re- turn on capital as an investmen

> Time Warner is considering a sale of its publishing division. The division had earnings EBITDA of $550 million in the most recent year (depreciation was $150 million), growing at an estimated 5% a year (you can assume that depreciation grows at the same

> Cracker Barrel, which operates restaurants and gift stores, is reexamining its policy of paying minimal dividends. In 1995, Cracker Barrel reported net income of $66 million; it had capital expenditures of $150 million in that year and claimed depreciati

> NYNEX, the phone utility for the New York City area, has approached you for advice on its capital structure. In 1995, NYNEX had debt outstanding of $12.14 billion and equity outstanding of $20.55 billion. The firm had an EBIT of $1.7 billion and faced a

> MiniSink is a manufacturing company that has $100 million in debt outstanding and 9 million shares trading at $100 per share. The current beta is 1.10, and the interest rate on the debt is 8%. In the latest year, MiniSink reported a net income of $7.50 p