Fight Finance

Question 85  WACC, CAPM

A company has:

• 140 million shares outstanding.
• The market price of one share is currently $2.
• The company's debentures are publicly traded and their market price is equal to 93% of the face value.
• The debentures have a total face value of $50,000,000 and the current yield to maturity of corporate debentures is 12% per annum.
• The risk-free rate is 8.50% and the market return is 13.7%.
• Market analysts estimated that the company's stock has a beta of 0.90.
• The corporate tax rate is 30%.

What is the company's after-tax weighted average cost of capital (WACC) in a classical tax system?

(a) 13.18%

(b) 11.10%

(c) 12.50%

(d) 14.24%

(e) 15.00%

Question 117  WACC

A firm can issue 5 year annual coupon bonds at a yield of 8% pa and a coupon rate of 12% pa.

The beta of its levered equity is 1. Five year government bonds yield 5% pa with a coupon rate of 6% pa. The market's expected dividend return is 4% pa and its expected capital return is 6% pa.

The firm's debt-to-equity ratio is 2:1. The corporate tax rate is 30%.

What is the firm's after-tax WACC? Assume a classical tax system.

(a) 9.47%

(b) 8.93%

(c) 8.53%

(d) 7.80%

(e) 7.07%

Question 240  negative gearing, interest tax shield

Unrestricted negative gearing is allowed in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Negative gearing laws allow income losses on investment properties to be deducted from a tax-payer's pre-tax personal income. Negatively geared investors benefit from this tax advantage. They also hope to benefit from capital gains which exceed the income losses.

For example, a property investor buys an apartment funded by an interest only mortgage loan. Interest expense is $2,000 per month. The rental payments received from the tenant living on the property are $1,500 per month. The investor can deduct this income loss of $500 per month from his pre-tax personal income. If his personal marginal tax rate is 46.5%, this saves $232.5 per month in personal income tax.

The advantage of negative gearing is an example of the benefits of:

(a) Diversification.

(b) The time value of money.

(c) Interest tax shields.

(d) Depreciation tax shields.

(e) A 'buy and hold' investment strategy.

Question 282  expected and historical returns, income and capital returns

You're the boss of an investment bank's equities research team. Your five analysts are each trying to find the expected total return over the next year of shares in a mining company. The mining firm:

• Is regarded as a mature company since it's quite stable in size and was floated around 30 years ago. It is not a high-growth company;
• Share price is very sensitive to changes in the price of the market portfolio, economic growth, the exchange rate and commodities prices. Due to this, its standard deviation of total returns is much higher than that of the market index;
• Experienced tough times in the last 10 years due to unexpected falls in commodity prices.
• Shares are traded in an active liquid market.

Your team of analysts present their findings, and everyone has different views. While there's no definitive true answer, whose calculation of the expected total return is the most plausible? Assume that:

• The analysts' source data is correct and true, but their inferences might be wrong;
• All returns and yields are given as effective annual nominal rates.

(a) Alice says 5% pa since she calculated that this was the average total yield on government bonds over the last 10 years. She says that this is also the expected total yield implied by current prices on one year government bonds.

(b) Bob says 4% pa since he calculated that this was the average total return on the mining stock over the last 10 years.

(c) Cate says 3% pa since she calculated that this was the average growth rate of the share price over the last 10 years.

(d) Dave says 6% pa since he calculated that this was the average growth rate of the share market price index (not the accumulation index) over the last 10 years.

(e) Eve says 15% pa since she calculated that this was the discount rate implied by the dividend discount model using the current share price, forecast dividend in one year and a 3% growth rate in dividends thereafter, which is the expected long term inflation rate.

Question 395  real option, option

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) Destroying customers' expansion option.

(b) Destroying customers' abandonment option.

(c) Destroying customers' timing (or delaying) option.

(d) Destroying customers' production (or switching) option.

(e) Growing customers' binomial tree.

Question 453  DDM, income and capital returns

The perpetuity with growth equation is:

###P_0=\dfrac{C_1}{r-g}###

Which of the following is NOT equal to the expected capital return as an effective annual rate?

(a) ##g##

(b) ##r+\dfrac{C_1}{P_0}##

(c) ##\dfrac{C_2}{C_1} -1##

(d) ##\dfrac{C_3-C_2}{C_2} ##

(e) ##\left( \dfrac{P_5}{P_3} \right)^{1/2}-1##

Question 488  income and capital returns, payout policy, payout ratio, DDM

Two companies BigDiv and ZeroDiv are exactly the same except for their dividend payouts.

BigDiv pays large dividends and ZeroDiv doesn't pay any dividends.

Currently the two firms have the same earnings, assets, number of shares, share price, expected total return and risk.

Assume a perfect world with no taxes, no transaction costs, no asymmetric information and that all assets including business projects are fairly priced and therefore zero-NPV.

All things remaining equal, which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) BigDiv is expected to have a lower capital return than ZeroDiv in the future.

(b) BigDiv is expected to have a lower total return than ZeroDiv in the future.

(c) ZeroDiv's assets are likely to grow faster than BigDiv's.

(d) ZeroDiv's share price will increase faster than BigDiv's.

(e) BigDiv currently has a higher payout ratio than ZeroDiv.

Question 590  future, market efficiency

Which of the following statements about futures contracts on shares is NOT correct, assuming that markets are efficient?

When an equity future is first negotiated (at t=0):

(a) The futures price quote ##(F_T)## is 'fair'. It's neither over- nor under-priced to the long or short trader.

(b) The futures price quote ##(F_T)## equals the expected underlying asset price at maturity.

(c) The futures price quote ##(F_0)## is initially zero.

(d) The value of the future ##(V_0)## is initially zero to both the long and short trader.

(e) If the value of the future ##(V_0)## rises for the long trader, it must have fallen for the short trader, and vice versa.

Question 645  option, no explanation

A trader buys one crude oil European style call option contract on the CME expiring in one year with an exercise price of $44 per barrel for a price of $6.64. The crude oil spot price is $40.33. If the trader doesn’t close out her contract before maturity, then at maturity she will have the:

(a) Obligation to buy the underlying oil at $44 per barrel.

(b) Obligation to sell the underlying oil at $44 per barrel.

(c) Right to buy the underlying oil at $44 per barrel if she wants.

(d) Right to sell the underlying oil at $44 per barrel if she wants.

(e) Obligation to buy the underlying oil at $44 per barrel if her counter party chooses to sell it.

Question 690  option

A trader just bought a European style put option on CBA stock. The current option premium is $2, the exercise price is $75, the option matures in one year and the spot CBA stock price is $74.

Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) The long trader paid the option premium at the start.

(b) The option is 'out of the money' at the start.

(c) The long trader wishes for the underlying CBA stock price to fall.

(d) The option can only be exercised at maturity.

(e) If the stock price falls to $60 at maturity, then the long trader can buy the underlying stock for $60, exercise his option to sell the underlying stock to his counterparty for $75, making a payoff at maturity of $15 and a profit of $13.