An analyst is valuing a levered company whose owners insist on keeping a constant market debt to assets ratio into the future.
The analyst is wondering how asset values and other things in her model will change when she changes the forecast sales growth rate.
Which of the below values will increase as the forecast growth rate of sales increases, with the debt to assets ratio remaining constant?
Assume that the cost of debt (yield) remains constant and the company’s asset beta will also remain constant since any expansion (or downsize) will involve buying (or selling) more of the same assets.
The analyst should expect which value or ratio to increase when the forecast growth rate of sales increases and the debt to assets ratio remains unchanged? In other words, which of the following values will NOT remain constant?