Fight Finance

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?

A 30-day Bank Accepted Bill has a face value of $1,000,000. The interest rate is 8% pa and there are 365 days in the year. What is its price now?

You just started work at your new job which pays $48,000 per year.

The human resources department have given you the option of being paid at the end of every week or every month.

Assume that there are 4 weeks per month, 12 months per year and 48 weeks per year.

Bank interest rates are 12% pa given as an APR compounding per month.

What is the dollar gain over one year, as a net present value, of being paid every week rather than every month?

Two years ago Fred bought a house for $300,000.

Now it's worth $500,000, based on recent similar sales in the area.

Fred's residential property has an expected total return of 8% pa.

He rents his house out for $2,000 per month, paid in advance. Every 12 months he plans to increase the rental payments.

The present value of 12 months of rental payments is $23,173.86.

The future value of 12 months of rental payments one year ahead is $25,027.77.

What is the expected annual growth rate of the rental payments? In other words, by what percentage increase will Fred have to raise the monthly rent by each year to sustain the expected annual total return of 8%?

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?

Private equity firms are known to buy medium sized private companies operating in the same industry, merge them together into a larger company, and then sell it off in a public float (initial public offering, IPO).

If medium-sized private companies trade at PE ratios of 5 and larger listed companies trade at PE ratios of 15, what return can be achieved from this strategy?

Assume that:

• The medium-sized companies can be bought, merged and sold in an IPO instantaneously.
• There are no costs of finding, valuing, merging and restructuring the medium sized companies. Also, there is no competition to buy the medium-sized companies from other private equity firms.
• The large merged firm's earnings are the sum of the medium firms' earnings.
• The only reason for the difference in medium and large firm's PE ratios is due to the illiquidity of the medium firms' shares.
• Return is defined as: ##r_{0→1} = (p_1-p_0+c_1)/p_0## , where time zero is just before the merger and time one is just after.

A company advertises an investment costing $1,000 which they say is underpriced. They say that it has an expected total return of 15% pa, but a required return of only 10% pa. Assume that there are no dividend payments so the entire 15% total return is all capital return.

Assuming that the company's statements are correct, what is the NPV of buying the investment if the 15% return lasts for the next 100 years (t=0 to 100), then reverts to 10% pa after that time? Also, what is the NPV of the investment if the 15% return lasts forever?

In both cases, assume that the required return of 10% remains constant. All returns are given as effective annual rates.

The answer choices below are given in the same order (15% for 100 years, and 15% forever):

An effective semi-annual return of 5% ##(r_\text{eff 6mth})## is equivalent to an effective annual return ##(r_\text{eff annual})## of:

Five years ago you entered into a fully amortising home loan with a principal of $500,000, an interest rate of 4.5% pa compounding monthly with a term of 25 years.

Then interest rates suddenly fall to 3% pa (t=0), but you continue to pay the same monthly home loan payments as you did before. How long will it now take to pay off your home loan? Measure the time taken to pay off the home loan from the current time which is 5 years after the home loan was first entered into.

Assume that the lower interest rate was given to you immediately after the loan repayment at the end of year 5, which was the 60th payment since the loan was granted. Also assume that rates were and are expected to remain constant.

Which of the following statements about returns is NOT correct? A stock's: