Chapter 9 Practice Questions 1. The total market value of the common stock of the Okefenokee Real Estate Company is $6 million, and the total value of its debt is $4 million. The treasurer estimates that the beta of the stock is currently 1. 5 and that the expected risk premium on the market is 6 percent. The Treasury bill rate is 4 percent. Assume for simplicity that Okefenokee debt is risk-free and the company does not pay tax. a. What is the required return on Okefenokee stock? requity = rf + (rm – rf) = 0. 04 + (1. 5 0. 06) = 0. 13 = 13% b. Estimate the company cost of capital. rassets = 0. 94 = 9. 4% c. What is the discount rate for an expansion of the company’s present business? The cost of capital depends on the risk of the project being evaluated. If the risk of the project is similar to the risk of the other assets of the company, then theappropriate rate of return is the company cost of capital. Here, the appropriatediscount rate is 9. 4%. The beta of unleveraged optical manufacturers is 1. 2. Estimate the required return on Okefenokee’s new venture. d. Suppose the company wants to diversify into the manufacture of rose-colored spectacles. requity = rf + (rm – rf) = 0. 4 + (1. 2 0. 06) = 0. 112 = 11. 2% rassets = 0. 0832 = 8. 32% 7. You are given the following information for Golden Fleece Financial. Long-term debt outstanding: $300,000 Current yield to maturity (rdebt): 8% Number of shares of common stock: 10,000 Price per share: $50 Book value per share: $25 Expected rate of return on stock (requity): 15% Calculate Golden Fleece’s company cost of capital. Ignore taxes. Total market value of outstanding debt is $300,000. Cost of debt capital is 8 percent. Common stock outstanding market value is: $50 10,000 = $500,000. Cost of equity capital is 15 percent.

Lorelei’s weighted-average cost of capital is: rassets = 0. 124 = 12. 4% 8. Look again at Table 9. 1. This time we will concentrate on Burlington Northern. a. Calculate Burlington’s cost of equity from the CAPM using its own beta estimate and the industry beta estimate. How different are your answers? Assume a risk-free rate of 3. 5 percent and a market risk premium of 8 percent. rBN = rf + BN (rm – rf) = 0. 035 + (0. 53 0. 08) = 0. 0774 = 7. 74% rIND = rf + IND (rm – rf) = 0. 035 + (0. 49 0. 08) = 0. 0742 = 7. 42% b. Can you be confident that Burlington’s true beta is not the industry average?

We can’t be confident that Burlington’s true beta is not the industry average. The difference between BN and IND is less than one standard error therfore we cannot reject the hypothesis that BN = IND c. Under what circumstances might you advise Burlington to calculate its cost of equity based on its own beta estimate? There are several reasons that Burlington’s beta might be different from the industry beta. For example, Burlington might have more fixed operating costs, making operating leverage higher. Burlington may also have more debt than is typical for the industry so that it has higher financial leverage. 11.

An oil company is drilling a series of new wells on the perimeter of a producing oil field. About 20 percent of the new wells will be dry holes. Even if a new well strikes oil, there is still uncertainty about the amount of oil produced: 40 percent of new wells that strike oil produce only 1,000 barrels a day; 60 percent produce 5,000 barrels per day. a. Forecast the annual cash revenues from a new perimeter well. Use a future oil price of $15 per barrel. Expected daily production = (0. 2 0) + 0. 8 [(0. 4 x 1,000) + (0. 6 x 5,000)] = 2,720 barrels Expected annual cash revenues = 2,720 x 365 x $15 = $14,892,000 . Ageologist proposes to discount the cash flows of the new wells at 30 percent to offset the risk of dry holes. The oil company’s normal cost of capital is 10 percent. Does this proposal make sense? Briefly explain why or why not. This possibility is a diversifiable risk and therefore should not affect the discount rate. This possibility will affect forecasted cash flows though. See Part (a). Chapter 10 Practice Questions 4. The Rustic Welt Company is proposing to replace its old welt-making machinery with more modern equipment. The new equipment costs $9 million (the existing equipment has zero salvage value).

The attraction of the new machinery is that it is expected to cut manufacturing costs from their current level of $8 a welt to $4. However, as the following table shows, there is some uncertainty both about future sales and about the performance of the new machinery: Pessimistic Expected Optimistic Sales, millions of welts . 4 . 5 . 7 Manufacturing cost with new machinery, dollars per welt 6 4 3 Economic life of new machinery, years 7 10 13 Conduct a sensitivity analysis of the replacement decision, assuming a discount rate of 12 percent. Rustic Welt does not pay taxes. Rustic replaces now rather than in one year: . It incurs the equivalent annual cost of the $9 million capital investment. ii. It reduces manufacturing costs. The “Expected” case, analyzing “Sales” we have (all dollar figures in millions): i. The economic life of the new machine is expected to be 10 years, so the equivalent annual cost of the new machine is: $9/5. 6502 = $1. 59 ii. The reduction in manufacturing costs is: 0. 5 $4 = $2. 00 Equivalent annual cost savings is: –$1. 59 + $2. 00 = $0. 41 | | Equivalent Annual Cost Savings (Millions)| | | Pessimistic| | Expected| | Optimistic| Sales| | 0. 01| | 0. 41| | 1. 21| Manufacturing Cost| | -0. 9| | 0. 41| | 0. 91| Economic Life| | 0. 03| | 0. 41| | 0. 60| 5. Rustic Welt could commission engineering tests to determine the actual improvement in manufacturing costs generated by the proposed new welt machines. (See Practice Question 4 above. ) The study would cost $450,000. Would you advise the company to go ahead with the study? From the problem above, we know in terms of negative outcomes, manufacturing cost is the key variable. Rustic should proceed with the study, because the cost of the study is much less than the potential annual loss assuming the pessimistic manufacturing cost estimate is realized.