A firm has a debt-to-assets ratio of 50%. The firm then issues a large amount of equity to raise money for new projects of similar systematic risk to the company's existing projects. Assume a classical tax system. Which statement is correct?
Question 308 risk, standard deviation, variance, no explanation
A stock's standard deviation of returns is expected to be:
- 0.09 per month for the first 5 months;
- 0.14 per month for the next 7 months.
What is the expected standard deviation of the stock per year ##(\sigma_\text{annual})##?
Assume that returns are independently and identically distributed (iid) and therefore have zero auto-correlation.
Question 398 financial distress, capital raising, leverage, capital structure, NPV
A levered firm has zero-coupon bonds which mature in one year and have a combined face value of $9.9m.
Investors are risk-neutral and therefore all debt and equity holders demand the same required return of 10% pa.
In one year the firm's assets will be worth:
- $13.2m with probability 0.5 in the good state of the world, or
- $6.6m with probability 0.5 in the bad state of the world.
A new project presents itself which requires an investment of $2m and will provide a certain cash flow of $3.3m in one year.
The firm doesn't have any excess cash to make the initial $2m investment, but the funds can be raised from shareholders through a fairly priced rights issue. Ignore all transaction costs.
Should shareholders vote to proceed with the project and equity raising? What will be the gain in shareholder wealth if they decide to proceed?
You are promised 20 payments of $100, where the first payment is immediate (t=0) and the last is at the end of the 19th year (t=19). The effective annual discount rate is ##r##.
Which of the following equations does NOT give the correct present value of these 20 payments?
The average weekly earnings of an Australian adult worker before tax was $1,542.40 per week in November 2014 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Therefore average annual earnings before tax were $80,204.80 assuming 52 weeks per year. Personal income tax rates published by the Australian Tax Office are reproduced for the 2014-2015 financial year in the table below:
| Taxable income | Tax on this income |
|---|---|
| 0 – $18,200 | Nil |
| $18,201 – $37,000 | 19c for each $1 over $18,200 |
| $37,001 – $80,000 | $3,572 plus 32.5c for each $1 over $37,000 |
| $80,001 – $180,000 | $17,547 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000 |
| $180,001 and over | $54,547 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000 |
The above rates do not include the Medicare levy of 2%. Exclude the Medicare levy from your calculations
How much personal income tax would you have to pay per year if you earned $80,204.80 per annum before-tax?
Mr Blue, Miss Red and Mrs Green are people with different utility functions.
Note that a fair gamble is a bet that has an expected value of zero, such as paying $0.50 to win $1 in a coin flip with heads or nothing if it lands tails. Fairly priced insurance is when the expected present value of the insurance premiums is equal to the expected loss from the disaster that the insurance protects against, such as the cost of rebuilding a home after a catastrophic fire.
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
Question 727 inflation, real and nominal returns and cash flows
The Australian Federal Government lends money to domestic students to pay for their university education. This is known as the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). The nominal interest rate on the HECS loan is set equal to the consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate. The interest is capitalised every year, which means that the interest is added to the principal. The interest and principal does not need to be repaid by students until they finish study and begin working.
Which of the following statements about HECS loans is NOT correct?
A non-dividend paying stock has a current price of $20.
The risk free rate is 5% pa given as a continuously compounded rate.
A 2 year futures contract on the stock has a futures price of $24.
You suspect that the futures contract is mis-priced and would like to conduct a risk-free arbitrage that requires zero capital. Which of the following steps about arbitraging the situation is NOT correct?