Fight Finance

Question 95  interest tax shield

The equations for Net Income (NI, also known as Earnings or Net Profit After Tax) and Cash Flow From Assets (CFFA, also known as Free Cash Flow to the Firm) per year are:

###NI=(Rev-COGS-FC-Depr-IntExp).(1-t_c)###

###CFFA=NI+Depr-CapEx - \varDelta NWC+IntExp###

For a firm with debt, what is the formula for the present value of interest tax shields if the tax shields occur in perpetuity?

You may assume:

• the value of debt (D) is constant through time,
• The cost of debt and the yield on debt are equal and given by ##r_D##.
• the appropriate rate to discount interest tax shields is ##r_D##.
• ##\text{IntExp}=D.r_D##

(a) ##D.t_c##

(b) ##D.r_D/t_c ##

(c) ##D.r_D.(1-t_c)##

(d) ##D.r_D/(1-t_c)##

(e) ##D.r_D.(t_c-1)##

Question 448  franking credit, personal tax on dividends, imputation tax system

A small private company has a single shareholder. This year the firm earned a $100 profit before tax. All of the firm's after tax profits will be paid out as dividends to the owner.

The corporate tax rate is 30% and the sole shareholder's personal marginal tax rate is 45%.

The Australian imputation tax system applies because the company generates all of its income in Australia and pays corporate tax to the Australian Tax Office. Therefore all of the company's dividends are fully franked. The sole shareholder is an Australian for tax purposes and can therefore use the franking credits to offset his personal income tax liability.

What will be the personal tax payable by the shareholder and the corporate tax payable by the company?

(a) Personal tax of $6.43 and corporate tax of $45.

(b) Personal tax of $15 and corporate tax of $30.

(c) Personal tax of $16.5 and corporate tax of $45.

(d) Personal tax of $31.5 and corporate tax of $30.

(e) Personal tax of $45 and corporate tax of $0.

Question 537  PE ratio, Multiples valuation, no explanation

Estimate the French bank Societe Generale's share price using a backward-looking price earnings (PE) multiples approach with the following assumptions and figures only. Note that EUR is the euro, the European monetary union's currency.

• The 4 major European banks Credit Agricole (ACA), Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), UniCredit (UCG) and Banco Santander (SAN) are comparable companies to Societe Generale (GLE);
• Societe Generale's (GLE's) historical earnings per share (EPS) is EUR 2.92;
• ACA's backward-looking PE ratio is 16.29 and historical EPS is EUR 0.84;
• DBK's backward-looking PE ratio is 25.01 and historical EPS is EUR 1.26;
• SAN's backward-looking PE ratio is 14.71 and historical EPS is EUR 0.47;
• UCG's backward-looking PE ratio is 15.78 and historical EPS is EUR 0.40;

Note: Figures sourced from Google Finance on 27 March 2015.

(a) EUR 209.6268

(b) EUR 52.4067

(c) EUR 8.6724

(d) EUR 3.9327

(e) EUR 2.1681

Question 667  forward foreign exchange rate, foreign exchange rate, cross currency interest rate parity, no explanation

The Australian cash rate is expected to be 2% pa over the next one year, while the US cash rate is expected to be 0% pa, both given as nominal effective annual rates. The current exchange rate is 0.73 USD per AUD.

What is the implied 1 year USD per AUD forward foreign exchange rate?

(a) 0.7157 USD per AUD

(b) 0.73 USD per AUD

(c) 0.7446 USD per AUD

(d) 0.9804 USD per AUD

(e) 1.02 USD per AUD

Question 701  utility, risk aversion, utility function, gamble

Mr Blue, Miss Red and Mrs Green are people with different utility functions.

Each person has $50 of initial wealth. A coin toss game is offered to each person at a casino where the player can win or lose $50. Each player can flip a coin and if they flip heads, they receive $50. If they flip tails then they will lose $50. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) Mr Blue's expected utility of wealth from gambling is 7.5 while refusing is 6.25. So the gamble makes him more happy.

(b) Miss Red's expected utility of wealth from gambling is 7.5 and refusing is also 7.5. This is why she is indifferent.

(c) Mr Blue's certainty equivalent of the risky gamble is $70.71. So he would pay to take part in the gamble.

(d) Miss Red's certainty equivalent of the risky gamble is $50.

(e) Mrs Green's certainty equivalent of the risky gamble is $70.71. She would enjoy taking part in the gamble.

Question 726  return distribution, mean and median returns

If a stock's expected future prices are log-normally distributed, what will be bigger, the stock's or future price? Or would you expect them to be ?

Question 768  accounting terminology, book and market values, no explanation

Accountants and finance professionals have lots of names for the same things which can be quite confusing.

Which of the following groups of items are NOT synonyms?

(a) Revenue, sales, turn over.

(b) Paid up capital, contributed equity.

(c) Shares, stock, equity.

(d) Net income, earnings, net profit after tax, the bottom line.

(e) Market capitalisation of equity, book value of equity.

Question 802  negative gearing, leverage, capital structure, no explanation

Which of the following statements about ‘negative gearing’ is NOT correct?

(a) Negative gearing provides benefits by increasing the investor’s personal pre-tax income in the current year.

(b) Negative gearing works best when the investor has a high personal income so they're in a high personal marginal income tax bracket.

(c) Negative gearing works best when the asset makes large capital gains but has low income (such as rent).

(d) The more leverage, the bigger the interest tax shield benefit of negative gearing.

(e) Real estate and shares can be negatively geared.

Question 968  foreign exchange rate, forward foreign exchange rate, cross currency interest rate parity, no explanation

Below is a graph showing the spread or difference between government bond yields in different countries compared to the US. Assume that all governments have zero credit risk.

According to the principle of cross-currency interest rate parity, which country is likely to have the greatest expected currency appreciation against the USD over the next 2 years?

(a) Australia

(b) Canada

(c) UK

(d) Japan

(e) Germany

Question 1000  duration, duration of a perpetuity with growth, needs refinement

An unlevered firm cuts its dividends and re-invests in zero-NPV projects with the same risk as its existing projects. This decreases the dividend yield, but increases the firm's equity's dividend growth rate and duration, while its total required return on equity remains unchanged. The equity can be valued as a perpetuity and the duration of a perpetuity is given below:

###D_\text{Macaulay} = \dfrac{1+r}{r-g}###

What will be the effect on the stock's CAPM beta? Assume that there's no change in the risk free rate or market risk premium. The company's equity beta will:

(a) Increase.

(b) Decrease.

(c) Remain unchanged.

(d) Not enough information is provided to answer the question.