Fight Finance

A bathroom and plumbing supplies shop offers credit to its customers. Customers are given 60 days to pay for their goods, but if they pay within 7 days they will get a 2% discount.

What is the effective interest rate implicit in the discount being offered? Assume 365 days in a year and that all customers pay on either the 7th day or the 60th day. All rates given in this question are effective annual rates.

A company has:

• 100 million ordinary shares outstanding which are trading at a price of $5 each. Market analysts estimated that the company's ordinary stock has a beta of 1.5. The risk-free rate is 5% and the market return is 10%.
• 1 million preferred shares which have a face (or par) value of $100 and pay a constant annual dividend of 9% of par. The next dividend will be paid in one year. Assume that all preference dividends will be paid when promised. They currently trade at a price of $90 each.
• Debentures that have a total face value of $200 million and a yield to maturity of 6% per annum. They are publicly traded and their market price is equal to 110% of their face value.

The corporate tax rate is 30%. All returns and yields are given as effective annual rates.

What is the company's after-tax Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)? Assume a classical tax system.

Your firm's research scientists can begin an exciting new project at a cost of $10m now, after which there’s a:

• 70% chance that cash flows will be $1m per year forever, starting in 5 years (t=5). This is the A state of the world.
• 20% chance that cash flows will be $3m per year forever, starting in 5 years (t=5). This is the B state of the world.
• 10% chance of a major break through in which case the cash flows will be $20m per year forever starting in 5 years (t=5), or instead, the project can be expanded by investing another $10m (at t=5) which is expected to give cash flows of $60m per year forever, starting at year 9 (t=9). Note that the perpetual cash flows are either the $20m from year 4 onwards, or the $60m from year 9 onwards after the additional $10m year 5 investment, but not both. This is the C state of the world.

The firm's cost of capital is 10% pa.

What's the present value (at t=0) of the option to expand in year 5?

Which firms tend to have low forward-looking price-earnings (PE) ratios? Only consider firms with positive PE ratios.

Which of the following is NOT a valid method to estimate future revenues or costs in a pro-forma income statement when trying to value a company?

Private equity firms are known to buy medium sized private companies operating in the same industry, merge them together into a larger company, and then sell it off in a public float (initial public offering, IPO).

If medium-sized private companies trade at PE ratios of 5 and larger listed companies trade at PE ratios of 15, what return can be achieved from this strategy?

Assume that:

• The medium-sized companies can be bought, merged and sold in an IPO instantaneously.
• There are no costs of finding, valuing, merging and restructuring the medium sized companies. Also, there is no competition to buy the medium-sized companies from other private equity firms.
• The large merged firm's earnings are the sum of the medium firms' earnings.
• The only reason for the difference in medium and large firm's PE ratios is due to the illiquidity of the medium firms' shares.
• Return is defined as: ##r_{0→1} = (p_1-p_0+c_1)/p_0## , where time zero is just before the merger and time one is just after.

The current gold price is $700, gold storage costs are 2% pa and the risk free rate is 10% pa, both with continuous compounding.

What should be the 3 year gold futures price?

A firm issues debt and uses the funds to buy back equity. Assume that there are no costs of financial distress or transactions costs. Which of the following statements about interest tax shields is NOT correct?

Which of the following statements about bond convexity is NOT correct?