Due to floods overseas, there is a cut in the supply of the mineral iron ore and its price increases dramatically. An Australian iron ore mining company therefore expects a large but temporary increase in its profit and cash flows. The mining company does not have any positive NPV projects to begin, so what should it do? Select the most correct answer.
A newly floated farming company is financed with senior bonds, junior bonds, cumulative non-voting preferred stock and common stock. The new company has no retained profits and due to floods it was unable to record any revenues this year, leading to a loss. The firm is not bankrupt yet since it still has substantial contributed equity (same as paid-up capital).
On which securities must it pay interest or dividend payments in this terrible financial year?
A fairly priced stock has a beta that is the same as the market portfolio's beta. Treasury bonds yield 5% pa and the market portfolio's expected return is 10% pa. What is the expected return of the stock?
Diversification in a portfolio of two assets works best when the correlation between their returns is:
Question 237 WACC, Miller and Modigliani, interest tax shield
Which of the following discount rates should be the highest for a levered company? Ignore the costs of financial distress.
Find the cash flow from assets (CFFA) of the following project.
| Project Data | |
| Project life | 2 years |
| Initial investment in equipment | $8m |
| Depreciation of equipment per year for tax purposes | $3m |
| Unit sales per year | 10m |
| Sale price per unit | $9 |
| Variable cost per unit | $4 |
| Fixed costs per year, paid at the end of each year | $2m |
| Tax rate | 30% |
Note 1: Due to the project, the firm will have to purchase $40m of inventory initially (at t=0). Half of this inventory will be sold at t=1 and the other half at t=2.
Note 2: The equipment will have a book value of $2m at the end of the project for tax purposes. However, the equipment is expected to fetch $1m when it is sold. Assume that the full capital loss is tax-deductible and taxed at the full corporate tax rate.
Note 3: The project will be fully funded by equity which investors will expect to pay dividends totaling $10m at the end of each year.
Find the project's CFFA at time zero, one and two. Answers are given in millions of dollars ($m).
Question 556 portfolio risk, portfolio return, standard deviation
An investor wants to make a portfolio of two stocks A and B with a target expected portfolio return of 12% pa.
- Stock A has an expected return of 10% pa and a standard deviation of 20% pa.
- Stock B has an expected return of 15% pa and a standard deviation of 30% pa.
The correlation coefficient between stock A and B's expected returns is 70%.
What will be the annual standard deviation of the portfolio with this 12% pa target return?
A company can invest funds in a five year project at LIBOR plus 50 basis points pa. The five-year swap rate is 4% pa. What fixed rate of interest can the company earn over the next five years by using the swap?
Question 785 fixed for floating interest rate swap, non-intermediated swap
The below table summarises the borrowing costs confronting two companies A and B.
| Bond Market Yields | ||||
| Fixed Yield to Maturity (%pa) | Floating Yield (%pa) | |||
| Firm A | 3 | L - 0.4 | ||
| Firm B | 5 | L + 1 | ||
Firm A wishes to borrow at a floating rate and Firm B wishes to borrow at a fixed rate. Design a non-intermediated swap that benefits firm A only. What will be the swap rate?
Question 791 mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate, log-normal distribution, VaR, confidence interval
A risk manager has identified that their pension fund’s continuously compounded portfolio returns are normally distributed with a mean of 5% pa and a standard deviation of 20% pa. The fund’s portfolio is currently valued at $1 million. Assume that there is no estimation error in the above figures. To simplify your calculations, all answers below use 2.33 as an approximation for the normal inverse cumulative density function at 99%. All answers are rounded to the nearest dollar. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?