In Australia, domestic university students are allowed to buy concession tickets for the bus, train and ferry which sell at a discount of 50% to full-price tickets.
The Australian Government do not allow international university students to buy concession tickets, they have to pay the full price.
Some international students see this as unfair and they are willing to pay for fake university identification cards which have the concession sticker.
What is the most that an international student would be willing to pay for a fake identification card?
Assume that international students:
- consider buying their fake card on the morning of the first day of university from their neighbour, just before they leave to take the train into university.
- buy their weekly train tickets on the morning of the first day of each week.
- ride the train to university and back home again every day seven days per week until summer holidays 40 weeks from now. The concession card only lasts for those 40 weeks. Assume that there are 52 weeks in the year for the purpose of interest rate conversion.
- a single full-priced one-way train ride costs $5.
- have a discount rate of 11% pa, given as an effective annual rate.
Approach this question from a purely financial view point, ignoring the illegality, embarrassment and the morality of committing fraud.
A company has:
- 10 million common shares outstanding, each trading at a price of $90.
- 1 million preferred shares which have a face (or par) value of $100 and pay a constant dividend of 9% of par. They currently trade at a price of $120 each.
- Debentures that have a total face value of $60,000,000 and a yield to maturity of 6% per annum. They are publicly traded and their market price is equal to 90% of their face value.
- The risk-free rate is 5% and the market return is 10%.
- Market analysts estimate that the company's common stock has a beta of 1.2. The corporate tax rate is 30%.
What is the company's after-tax Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)? Assume a classical tax system.
Question 99 capital structure, interest tax shield, Miller and Modigliani, trade off theory of capital structure
A firm changes its capital structure by issuing a large amount of debt and using the funds to repurchase shares. Its assets are unchanged.
Assume that:
- The firm and individual investors can borrow at the same rate and have the same tax rates.
- The firm's debt and shares are fairly priced and the shares are repurchased at the market price, not at a premium.
- There are no market frictions relating to debt such as asymmetric information or transaction costs.
- Shareholders wealth is measured in terms of utiliity. Shareholders are wealth-maximising and risk-averse. They have a preferred level of overall leverage. Before the firm's capital restructure all shareholders were optimally levered.
According to Miller and Modigliani's theory, which statement is correct?
Value the following business project to manufacture a new product.
| Project Data | ||
| Project life | 2 yrs | |
| Initial investment in equipment | $6m | |
| Depreciation of equipment per year | $3m | |
| Expected sale price of equipment at end of project | $0.6m | |
| Unit sales per year | 4m | |
| Sale price per unit | $8 | |
| Variable cost per unit | $5 | |
| Fixed costs per year, paid at the end of each year | $1m | |
| Interest expense per year | 0 | |
| Tax rate | 30% | |
| Weighted average cost of capital after tax per annum | 10% | |
Notes
- The firm's current assets and current liabilities are $3m and $2m respectively right now. This net working capital will not be used in this project, it will be used in other unrelated projects.
Due to the project, current assets (mostly inventory) will grow by $2m initially (at t = 0), and then by $0.2m at the end of the first year (t=1).
Current liabilities (mostly trade creditors) will increase by $0.1m at the end of the first year (t=1).
At the end of the project, the net working capital accumulated due to the project can be sold for the same price that it was bought. - The project cost $0.5m to research which was incurred one year ago.
Assumptions
- 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 real. The inflation rate is 3% pa.
- All rates are given as effective annual rates.
- The business considering the project is run as a 'sole tradership' (run by an individual without a company) and is therefore eligible for a 50% capital gains tax discount when the equipment is sold, as permitted by the Australian Tax Office.
What is the expected net present value (NPV) of the project?
Estimate Microsoft's (MSFT) share price using a price earnings (PE) multiples approach with the following assumptions and figures only:
- Apple, Google and Microsoft are comparable companies,
- Apple's (AAPL) share price is $526.24 and historical EPS is $40.32.
- Google's (GOOG) share price is $1,215.65 and historical EPS is $36.23.
- Micrsoft's (MSFT) historical earnings per share (EPS) is $2.71.
Source: Google Finance 28 Feb 2014.
Below are some statements about loans and bonds. The first descriptive sentence is correct. But one of the second sentences about the loans' or bonds' prices is not correct. Which statement is NOT correct? Assume that interest rates are positive.
Note that coupons or interest payments are the periodic payments made throughout a bond or loan's life. The face or par value of a bond or loan is the amount paid at the end when the debt matures.
Calculate the price of a newly issued ten year bond with a face value of $100, a yield of 8% pa and a fixed coupon rate of 6% pa, paid annually. So there's only one coupon per year, paid in arrears every year.
Question 543 price gains and returns over time, IRR, NPV, income and capital returns, effective return
For an asset price to triple every 5 years, what must be the expected future capital return, given as an effective annual rate?
Question 572 bond pricing, zero coupon bond, term structure of interest rates, expectations hypothesis, forward interest rate, yield curve
In the below term structure of interest rates equation, all rates are effective annual yields and the numbers in subscript represent the years that the yields are measured over:
###(1+r_{0-3})^3 = (1+r_{0-1})(1+r_{1-2})(1+r_{2-3}) ###
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
An equity index is currently at 4,800 points. The 1.5 year futures price is 5,100 points and the total required return is 6% pa with continuous compounding. Each index point is worth $25.
What is the implied dividend yield as a continuously compounded rate per annum?