Fight Finance

One of Miller and Modigliani's (M&M's) important insights is that a firm's managers should not try to achieve a particular level of leverage in a world with zero taxes and perfect information since investors can make their own leverage. Therefore corporate capital structure policy is irrelevant since investors can achieve their own desired leverage at the personal level by borrowing or lending on their own.

This principal of 'home-made' or 'do-it-yourself' leverage can also be applied to other topics. Read the following statements to decide which are true:

(I) Payout policy: a firm's managers should not try to achieve a particular pattern of equity payout.

(II) Agency costs: a firm's managers should not try to minimise agency costs.

(III) Diversification: a firm's managers should not try to diversify across industries.

(IV) Shareholder wealth: a firm's managers should not try to maximise shareholders' wealth.

Which of the above statement(s) are true?

Notes

1. The project will require an immediate purchase of $50k of inventory, which will all be sold at cost when the project ends. Current liabilities are negligible so they can be ignored.

Assumptions

• The debt-to-equity ratio will be kept constant throughout the life of the project. The amount of interest expense at the end of each period has been correctly calculated to maintain this constant debt-to-equity ratio. Note that interest expense is different in each year.
• Thousands are represented by 'k' (kilo).
• All cash flows occur at the start or end of the year as appropriate, not in the middle or throughout the year.
• All rates and cash flows are nominal. The inflation rate is 2% pa.
• All rates are given as effective annual rates.
• The 50% capital gains tax discount is not available since the project is undertaken by a firm, not an individual.

What is the net present value (NPV) of the project?

The cheapest mobile phones available tend to be those that are 'locked' into a cell phone operator's network. Locked phones can not be used with other cell phone operators' networks.

Locked mobile phones are cheaper than unlocked phones because the locked-in network operator helps create a monopoly by:

A managed fund charges fees based on the amount of money that you keep with them. The fee is 2% of the end-of-year amount, paid at the end of every year.

This fee is charged regardless of whether the fund makes gains or losses on your money.

The fund offers to invest your money in shares which have an expected return of 10% pa before fees.

You are thinking of investing $100,000 in the fund and keeping it there for 40 years when you plan to retire.

How much money do you expect to have in the fund in 40 years? Also, what is the future value of the fees that the fund expects to earn from you? Give both amounts as future values in 40 years. Assume that:

• The fund has no private information.
• Markets are weak and semi-strong form efficient.
• The fund's transaction costs are negligible.
• The cost and trouble of investing your money in shares by yourself, without the managed fund, is negligible.
• The fund invests its fees in the same companies as it invests your funds in, but with no fees.

The below answer choices list your expected wealth in 40 years and then the fund's expected wealth in 40 years.

You have $100,000 in the bank. The bank pays interest at 10% pa, given as an effective annual rate.

You wish to consume half as much now (t=0) as in one year (t=1) and have nothing left in the bank at the end.

How much can you consume at time zero and one? The answer choices are given in the same order.

A company's share price fell by 20% and its number of shares rose by 25%. Assume that there are no taxes, no signalling effects and no transaction costs.

Which one of the following corporate events may have happened?

A semi-annual coupon bond has a yield of 3% pa. Which of the following statements about the yield is NOT correct? All rates are given to four decimal places.

The below table summarises the borrowing costs confronting two companies A and B.

Firm A wishes to borrow at a floating rate and Firm B wishes to borrow at a fixed rate. Design an intermediated swap (which means there will actually be two swaps) that nets a bank 0.15% and grants the remaining swap benefits to Firm A only. Which of the following statements about the swap is NOT correct?

The present value of an annuity of 3 annual payments of $5,000 in arrears (at the end of each year) is $12,434.26 when interest rates are 10% pa compounding annually.

If the same amount of $12,434.26 is put in the bank at the same interest rate of 10% pa compounded annually and the same cash flow of $5,000 is withdrawn at the end of every year, how much money will be in the bank in 3 years, just after that third $5,000 payment is withdrawn?

You currently have $100 in the bank which pays a 10% pa interest rate.

Oranges currently cost $1 each at the shop and inflation is 5% pa which is the expected growth rate in the orange price.

This information is summarised in the table below, with some parts missing that correspond to the answer options. All rates are given as effective annual rates. Note that when payments are not specified as real, as in this question, they're conventionally assumed to be nominal.

Which of the following statements is NOT correct? Your: