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Kawalkapoor's Notes 2003 Finance
Kawalkapoor's Notes 2003 Finance
Module 1
Financial Markets
- Participation is financial markets is driven in part by the desire to shift future
resources to he present so as to increase personal consumption, and thus
satisfaction.
- Or one may shift resources to the future by lending them, buying common
stock, etc. In exchange, they get an expectation of increased future
resources, in the form of interest, dividends, and/or capital gains.
- Where financial investments serve the purpose of reallocating the same
resources over time, real asset investment can actually create new future
resources.
- The provision of funds for real asset investment is important, as is the
allocative information that financial markets provide to those interested in
making real asset investment.
- Financial markets can help tell the investor whether a proposed investment is
worthwhile by comparing the returns from the investment with those available
on competing uses.
- Financial market participants are risk-averse, they would choose the less
risky of two otherwise identical investments.
CF1
$2640
$1540
0 CF0
$1000 $2400
2
- If a participant had $1000 at t0 and wished to borrow whatever he could with
a promise to repay $1540 at t1, how much could he borrow? Assume a 10%
interest rate.
CF1 = CF0 (1+ i)
CF1 $1540
CF0 = --------- or ---------- = $1400
(1+ i) 1.10
The participant could borrow $1400 with a promise to repay $1540 at t 1. The
maximum amount the participant could consume at t0 is thus $2400 (present
wealth). $1400 is the present value of $1540.
- Present value is defined as the amount of money you must invest or lend at
the present time so as to end up with a particular amount of money in the
future.
- Finding the present value of a future cash flow is often called discounting the
cash flow.
- Present value is also an accurate representation of what the financial market
does when it sets a price on a financial asset.
Investing
- Investing in real assets allows for an increase in wealth because it does not
require finding someone to decrease their own.
- For wealth to increase the present value of the amount given up for real
asset investment must be less than the present value of what is gained from
the investment.
CF0
(1+IRR) = --------
CF1
- An IRR greater than the financial market rate implies an acceptable
investment (and a + NPV), an IRR lower than it does not (and a –NPV).
- IRR and NPV usually give the same answer as to whether an investment is
acceptable, but often give different answers as to which of two investments is
better.
3
Corporate Example
- The sole task of a company is to maximise the present wealth of its
shareholders.
- A company would accept investments up to the point where the next
investment would have a –NPV or an IRR less than its opportunity cost.
Compound Interest
- Compounding means that the exchange rate between two time points is such
that interest is earned not only on the initial investment, but also on
previously earned interest. The amount of money you end up with by
investing CF0 at compounding interest is written CF0 = [1 + (i/m)]m t, where m
is the number of times per period that compounding takes place, and t is the
number of periods the investment covers.
- The most frequent type of compounding is called continuous. Interest is
calculated and added to begin calculating interest on itself without any
passage of time between compoundings. This reduces the above formula to
CF0(eit), where e is = 2.718…., the base of a natural logarithm.
4
- When discount rates are consistent across the future this changes to;
T CFt
PV = Σ --------
t=1 (1+ i)t
Calculation Methods
- Start with the CF furthest from the present, discount it one period closer and
add the CF from the closer time point, discount that sum one period nearer,
etc. Continue process until all cash flows are included and discounted back
to t0. PREFERRED METHOD
- Use present value tables. Adding up the cash flows after discounting each
one for its respective time period.
- Tables are valuable when finding the present value of annuities. A constant
annuity is a set of cash flows that are the same amount across future time
points.
- A perpetuity is a cash flow stream assumed to continue forever. Formula is
simply a division of the constant per-period CF by the constant per-period
discount rate, or PV = CF/i.
- A slight modification of the above allows for the assumption that the cash
flows will continue forever, but will grow or decline at a constant percentage
rate during each period (AKA growth perpetuity), PV = CF/(i – g) where g is
the constant per-period growth rate of the cash flow.
- This equation will not work when i<g.
5
- This amount allows for a calculation of a forward interest rate.
- Forward interest rates are usually indicated as ƒ with a left subscript
indicating the rates start time point and a right one indicating the ending time
point. Therefore;
CF1 (1+1ƒ2) = CF2
- This formula calculates the implied forward rate for a bond.
- If forward rates are known, the spot rate of interest can be found by
multiplying together 1 plus each of the intervening forward rates, taking the
nth root of that product (where n = number of periods covered), and
subtracting 1.
6
Module 2 – Fundamentals of Company Investment Decisions
7
Share Values and Price/Earnings Ratios
- P/E ratios are offered as signals that the market is providing as to the
company’s future earnings prospects, growth rate, riskiness, etc.
- The P/E ratio is nothing more or less than the ratio between the present
value of all the company s future dividends (its market price) and its expected
earnings during the first period.
- For certain company’s with very simple cash-flow patterns (i.e. constant, or
constant growth perpetuities) we can derive a specific relationship between
P/E ratios and equity discount rates;
Price per share =
Dividend per share / re =
Equity per share / re
So
Price per share / Earnings per share =
1 / re
- For companies who are not paying out all earnings as dividends;
Price per share =
Dividend per share / (re-g) =
Earnings per share x payout ratio / (re-g)
where payout ratio is the percentage of earnings paid as dividend.
- Caution must be exercised when comparing the P/E rations of different
companies to ensure that all but one of the factors influencing market prices
are reasonably similar.
8
Module 3 – Earnings, Profit, and Cash Flow
Company
$$ Invested $$
Assets/
Services
Capital Suppliers of
Suppliers Assets/
Services
$ Capital Services
(dividends, interest, etc.)
- Financial cash flows are the cash amounts that are excepted to occur at the
times for which the expectations are recorded.
Typical Cash Flows (Company with zero debt, 100% equity financed) (‘000s)
Now Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Customers 0 +17 500 +23 500 +4 000
Operations 0 -7 000 -3 830 -5 200
Assets -10 000 -4 000 -2 000 0
Government 0 -4 000 -8 085 +5 600
Capital (FCF) -10 000 +2 500 +9 585 +4 400
9
- Cash flows are not the same as he numbers that appear in financial
statements of corporations.
- One of the biggest differentiation is that accounting figures often report cash
flows for time periods other that that which the flow occurs.
10
Module 4 – Company Investment Decisions using the WACC
- The weighed average cost of capital (WACC) is a discount rate that
combines the capital costs of all the various types of capital claims that a
company issues.
11
Debt cost = Debt required return x (1-corporate income tax rate)
- WACC is therefore calculated as follows;
WACC = (debt market value / total market value x debt cost rate)
+ (equity market value / total market value x equity required rate)
Notations
Cash Flows
FCFt Free cash flow: the amount of cash a company can distribute to its capital
suppliers at time t due to an investment.
12
FCF*t Unleveraged (ungeared) free cash flow: amount of free cash flow a company is
expected to generate at t due to a project, not including income tax shields. Equal
to FCFt – ITSt.
Market Values
Et Market value of the equity of the investment at time t.
Dt Market value of the debt of the investment at time t.
Vt Market value of the investment at time t. Equal to Et + Dt.
Discount Rates
re Required return on the equity of the investment.
rd Required return on the debt of the investment.
rd* Cost of debt as a rate to the investment. Equal to rd x (1-T c).
rv Overall weighted average return on the capital claims of the investment. Equal to
D/V (rd) + E/V (re).
rv* Weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of the investment. Equal to D/V (rd *) +
E/V (re).
rv All-equity unleveraged (ungeared) required return on the investment.
WACC-NPV
n FCF*t
NPV0 = Σ ---------
t=0
(1+rv*)t
APV
n FCF*t ITSt
APV0 = Σ [ -------- + --------
t=0
(1+rv)t (1+rd)t
13
Module 5 – Estimating Cash Flows for Investment Projects
- Estimating investment cash flows means that financial managers must keep
the following in mind:
1. Inclusion of all corporate cash flows affected by the investment
sometimes means that financial analysts must invoke the idea of
economic opportunity costs.
2. Inclusion of all relevant cash flows means that analysts must include
cash flows from interactions of the investment with other activities of
the corporation.
3. Inclusion of all relevant cash flows also means that analysts must
know what things should be omitted from the investments cash
flows. I.e. sink costs are to be ignored. An investment should be
discontinued if it’s future cash flows present value is less than the
company would obtain by selling or abandoning the project now or
later.
4. Inclusion of all relevant cash flows means that analysts must be very
careful that the accounting numbers provided for a project are
interpreted correctly. I.e. Overhead costs are typically not indicative
of the incremental cash flows that a project will require. Accounting
numbers can include non-cash expenses (depreciation), and
arbitrary activity measures such as floor-space devoted to the
manufacture of a product. It is however correct to include as cash
outflows the increments to overall corporate expenses caused by the
acceptance of the project.
- There are many corporate cash flows that should not be included because
they are not incremental (i.e. managers salaries); they would not be affected
by the acceptance or rejection of a project.
Summary
- All changes that would be caused in the cash flows of a corporation by its
accepting a project must be included in the analysis of the project.
- ONLY cash flows are to be included.
14
Module 6 – Applications of a Company’s Investment Analysis
15
compared? The YTM of a security with the same risk and cash flow patterns
as the investment would have to be found.
16
- PI is unsuitable for ranking investments because it displays another relative
measure, the wealth increase per dollar of initial outlay instead of the wealth
increase itself.
Capital Rationing
- The set of methods used to choose a group of projects that will maximise
shareholder wealth while having limited funds available is called capital
rationing techniques.
- When having to choose between a few projects, one simply looks at all the
possible combinations of investments that lie within the budget and choose
the package with the greatest NPV. This is called exhaustive enumeration.
- When confronted with many projects to choose from, one common method is
to calculate the profitability indices for the investments, and to list them in
declining order of PI. Investments are then accepted in order of PI, until the
budget has been exhausted.
- A project may be skipped because its outlay is too large, and the next one
having a small enough outlay taken as you work down the list.
- The PI technique must be used with some caution in ranking investments
when the highest PI projects do not use up the entire budget.
- Being under capital rationing is an undesirable situation. It can mean that you
have not been able to solve internal organisation/communication problems,
or that the capital market is unconvinced of your prospects. This implies that
you will be forced to forego investments that would have increased the
wealth of shareholders.
- The existence of high market required rates should not be interpreted as a
capital-rationing situation. This is simply a signal that your capital costs are
also high.
- The capital rationing situation implies that financing beyond the budget
constraint carries not a high but an indefinite cost.
Investment Inter-relatedness
- This is when the acceptance or rejection of one investment affects the
expected cash flows on another.
- Mutual exclusivity is a form of economic inter-relatedness.
- Combinations are also inter-related.
Renewable Investments
- When companies must choose among investments in real assets where the
life span and cash costs are different for each option the equivalent annual
cost technique is used.
- The technique is as follows;
1. The NPV of a single cycle for each asset is found.
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2. Divide each NPV by the annuity present value factor for the number
of years in each assets replacement cycle at the appropriate
discount rate.
3. The result is the constant annuity outlay per period that has the
same NPV as the asset.
4. Compare the per-period equivalent annuity outlay for each asset and
choose that which has the lowest cost per period.
Leasing
- A contractual agreement between an asset owner (lessor) and a company
that will actually operate the asset without owning it (lessee)
- The most common type of lease is a financial or capital lease – where the
lessor is usually in the business of leasing assets.
Advantages
- Leasing allows for higher tax benefits that the alternative of borrowing and
purchasing an asset.
- Information asymmetries exist on certain types of assets, and leasing can
serve to lower the costs of such information problems.
- There are economies of scale in the management of specialised asset
leasing.
Misconceptions
- Leasing saves money because the lessee does not have to make a large
capital outlay to purchase an asset.
- Lessee debt capacity is higher since they do not need to borrow money to
buy the asset.
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Evaluating Leases
- Cash flows used would include; cost of purchasing, lost depreciation tax
shields, lease payments, and lease payment tax shields.
- The correct discount rate for performing an NPV is the after tax interest rate
(rd*).
- It is important to know what lease rate would allow for a positive NPV when
negotiating lease agreements with a lessor.
19
Module VII – Risk and Company Investment Decisions
Return
Risk
- The security market line or SML describes the relationship between risk and
return as being positive; the higher the risk, the higher the required return.
20
Risk, Return, and Diversification
- Continuing with the above example;
Return Probability
outcome
Asset A 10% 45%
20% 55%
Asset B 7% 65%
12% 35%
- Expected returns per asset are;
A: (0.10 x 0.45) + (0.20 x 0.55) = 0.155 or 15.5%
B: (0.07 x 0.65) + (0.12 x 0.35) = 0.0875 or 8.75%
- Standard deviations are:
A: (0.10 - 0.155)2 x 0.45 = 0.00136
(0.20 – 0.155)2 x 0.55 = 0.00111
= 0.00247
√0.00247 = 0.0497 or 4.97%
B: (0.07 - 0.0875)2 x 0.65 = 0.00020
(0.12 – 0.0875)2 x 0.35 = 0.00037
= 0.00057
√0.00057 = 0.0239 or 2.39%
- The logical way to find the risks and returns of the portfolio formed therefore
seems to be to take the average of the returns and standard deviations for
the two individual assets;
Avg Return: (0.5 x 0.1550) + (0.5 x 0.0875) = 0.12125 or 12.125% (same
as the portfolios expected rate of return above!).
Avg Std Deviation (0.5 x 0.0497) + (0.5 x 0.0239) = 0.0368 or 3.68%
(differs from the std deviation for the portfolio of 3.008%).
- Obviously the weighted average standard deviation of return of individual
assets in the portfolio is not a correct way to calculate the std deviation of
return of the portfolio.
- In order to derive the portfolios return probability distribution, we must know
how individual asset returns interact. This information comes in the form of a
joint probability distribution;
- Each cell inside a box describes the probability of a particular set of returns
being simultaneously earned by both assets A and B.
- The joint (interior) probabilities must sum in rows and columns to equal the
original probabilities of the individual security returns while the sum of all
cells must equal 100% (1.0).
21
- The whole portfolio has less risk than the average risk of the securities within
it due to diversification.
- An easier method for figuring out risk of a portfolio is using the correlation
coefficient.
Risk of
average
Portfolio Riskm
# of securities in portfolio
Return of
the market
22
- The steeper the slope (β), the greater will the returns on the security j gear
upward (or downward) the returns on the market portfolio.
Erj
m SML
E(rm)
rf
βj
Using the Capital Asset Pricing Model in Evaluation Company Investment Decisions
- The CAPM or SML is a system that generates required rates of return based
upon the riskiness of assets.
Erj
SML
ReturnA
WACC
ReturnB
βj
βB RISKWACC βA
- Recall that the WACC of any company is in fact an average of the risk-
adjusted rates of return of the company’s various endeavours, including
asset types and associated future cash flow expectations.
- In order to be acceptable, an investment must offer an expected return in
excess of the return depicted on the SML for the investments systematic risk
23
level. This means that good investments would plot above the SML,
perpendicularly above their systematic risk.
- In the above example, investment A is above the WACC, thereby implying it
is acceptable. However it is below the SML which indicates that it does not
offer a return high enough to compensate for its risk. Investment B has the
opposite problem.
- A company should not generally apply its WACC as an investment criterion.
It will only give a correct answer when an investments risk is the same as the
average risk of the entire company.
- Most companies are aware that projects can differ in risk, and that some
adjustment of criterion is advisable. Usually this takes on the form of fixed
increments or decrements to the company’s average criterion.
Some Considerations
- If the projects revenues are expected to be quite volatile in reaction to overall
market activity, relative to the divisional / company average, an adjustment to
the β coefficient must be made.
- Similarly, on the cost side, if fixed costs of a project comprise a relatively high
proportion of its total cost, the β coefficient of the project must be adjusted
upwards – this is described as operational gearing.
- One preliminary adjustment that must be performed when constructing β. If
the beginning value is from a company that has borrowed money, the value
must be purified before the other adjustments are made. This is done by:
βv = βe E/V + βd D/V
Where βe and βd are observed equity and debt β coefficients, E and D are
their observed market values, and V is the sum of E and D.
- Once βv is solved it must be adjusted for revenue and operational gearing
differences. To adjust for revenue risk differential, β v is multiplied by the ratio
of the investments revenue volatility to that of the company:
Project revenue volatility
Revenue-adjusted β = βv ------------------------------------
Company revenue volatility
- Next β is adjusted for operational gearing:
24
(1 + project fixed cost %)
Project βy = Revenue adjusted β x -------------------------------------
(1 + company fixed cost %)
- The final step that remains is to re-adjust the reconstructed and ungeared β
coefficient for any financial gearing planned for the project. In order to do so,
we must know the β coefficient for the debt that will be issued for the project
as well as the gearing ratio. With these two items as well as the ungeared β
coefficient of the project, the equity coefficient can be calculated using:
βv = βe E/V + βd D/V
Certainty Equivalents
- It is possible to adjust downward the expected future cash flow itself for its
risk characteristics, creating a certainty-equivalent cash flow, and to discount
that cash flow at the risk-free rate.
- The SML equation must be changed to state cash-flows:
CF – E(rm) – rf
CFce = --------------------- Covariance (CF,rm)
Variance (rm)
- The certainty equivalent cash flow (CFce) is found by subtracting from the
expected risky cash flow (CF) an adjustment for its systematic risk.
- That adjustment uses a variant of the market price of risk, [E(rm) – rf]/
Variance (rm), multiplied by a measure of the systematic risk of the cash flow,
Covariance (CF, rm). Variance (rm) is the variance (standard deviation2) of the
market return, and the covariance (CF, rm) is the covariance (β coefficient of
the CF x variance of the market return) of the cash flow with the overall
market.
25
- In order to be undesirable, the discounted certainty equivalent of the 1 250
000 would have to be less than 500 000.
Conclusion
- If shareholders are already well diversified, diversification at the company
level is irrelevant (and probably costly) to them.
26
Module VIII – Company Dividend Policy
- Since and residual cash not paid as dividends is still owned by shareholders,
this retained cash is reinvested in the company on behalf of shareholders.
This dividend decision is thus also a cash-retention or reinvestment decision.
Dividend Irrelevancy
- The net result of changing a company’s dividend is the substitutability of
capital gains (i.e. share value increases) as the dividend is reduced for cash
when it is paid.
- Increased dividends = decreased market value, and vise-versa.
- The investment / dividend connection
Residual Cash
Available
Dividend
Shareholders
Retention
New
Equity
Investment
- Truly organic for the company: if dividends are changed, and no other action
undertaken, the company’s investments will also change. Using above
diagram, an increase in dividends would be shown as a widening of the
dividend pipe and a narrowing of the retention pipe resulting in a smaller
investment amount.
- To isolate the effect of dividend choices, the company’s investment plans
must be kept intact as dividends change.
- Increase in dividends = increase in new equity (more shares
issued)
- Decrease in dividends = decrease in new equity (less shares
issued)
- The company share value in total is unchanged, therefore existing
shareholder wealth is the same.
- When the effect of company financial decisions upon shareholders portfolios
can be undone by the offsetting actions of shareholders, the company
financial decision is irrelevant!
Taxation of Dividends
- From the shareholders perspective, it is after-tax dividends that are of
interest. The dividend substitute - capital gains, are also potentially liable for
taxation.
- Of the two it is usually dividends that are taxed more heavily.
- In countries where dividends are net of company taxes, and the dividends
paid are taxed at the shareholder level, dividend payment is expensive.
- In such a system, there is a strong tax incentive against the payment of
dividends for companies seeking to please their shareholders.
27
- Some countries have imputation systems which impute an amount of
company taxes to shareholders based upon the dividends that companies
pay, and then give shareholders a credit on their taxes for that amount.
- This only balances the double payment effect if personal income tax liabilities
of shareholders = the tax credit.
Flotation Costs
- Companies themselves incur costs in raising money from capital markets
when they pay dividends so high as to require new shares to be issued.
- Depending on the mechanism of sale these flotation costs can be significant
(5-25% of total value of shares issued).
Combined Friction’s
- The net bias in most cases is against the payment of dividends.
- The resulting optimal dividend policy would be to find all the investments with
positive NPVs and retain as mush cash as is necessary to undertake them; if
there is cash left over a dividend could be paid – sometimes called a passive
residual dividend policy.
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Module IX - Company Capital Structure
Ungeared
29
- With respect to specific weighted average relationships determining rv we
can imply;
rv = D/V (rd) + (1 - D/V) (re)
- The higher proportion of lower-cost debt exactly offsets the lower proportion
of higher cost-equity such that their weighted average is unchanged.
- Notice that the company’s cost of capital (WACC) steadily declines as the
company substitutes debt for equity in its capital structure. This is because
even though a company’s value is increasing, it’s ungeared FCF must (by
definition) stay the same as D/V increases, so if V = FCF * / rv*, rv* must be
declining as D/V increases.
- A company’s cost of capital is therefore lower the higher its proportion of
debt.
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Capital Structure Irrelevancy II: Taxes
- Merton Miller has argued that as more and more borrowing is undertaken by
companies in economies with progressive personal taxes, the interest rates
necessary to sell bonds to high personal-tax investors will cause the benefits
of company borrowing to disappear.
- The tax benefits of company borrowing compete with other mechanisms
used to reduce taxes (depreciation, credits) which tends to reduce debts
advantages, particularly when the amounts of income that require shelter
from taxes is uncertain.
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Book Values and Borrowing
- Practitioners argue book values should be used for measuring the extent of
company borrowing while academic types argue that market values are the
correct measure.
- The use of book values in the real world makes sense. They are a good
measure of the extent to which values will not be upset by financial distress
when the company is engaged in borrowing.
1. Examine what companies in similar lines of business have decided about the
amounts they will borrow.
- The best way to do this is to look at company averages for borrowing ratios
in the industry of interest.
- The distance of a company’s debt ratio from the industry average determines
the borrowing decision.
2. Financial planning – a detailed examination of the company’s future cash-flow
expectations (including those associated with the borrowing alternatives under
consideration) so as to decide upon the best choice of financing method.
- The company financial planner, in possession of a capacity to simulate the
cash flow and financial statements of the company across the future, asks a
series of what-ifs of the planning model.
- The result is a set of possible future outcomes for the company under the
sets of conditions / financing alternatives that the planner examines.
1. The company should use simulation to attempt to forecast its cash flows and financial
statements across the foreseeable future under the various alternative proposals for
financing.
2. If similarities indicate a significant chance of coming into conflict with covenants of
borrowing contracts in ways that would damage the operational aspects of the firm
borrowing should be avoided.
3. If simulations show that tax benefits of borrowing simply replace other tax benefits
there is little reason to borrow.
4. If a company’s value is largely based in tangible assets, more borrowing is
sustainable. Industry gearing ratios are useful to see what other companies have
been able to sustain.
5. If potential lenders fear company action to the detriment of bondholders, the
company should attach covenants to the bonds to alleviate some of that concern (i.e.
convertibility provisions).
6. There are also reasons why a company may choose to avoid new equity issuance
(i.e. loss of ownership control) and such considerations may outweigh the negative
aspects of borrowing.
7. Once a tentative conclusion has been made, see if the result would be inconsistent
with the capital structures of other companies in the same line of business. If so, it
should be determined whether this is an improvement over the usual practice or a
signal that something has been left out of the analysis.
32
Module X – Working Capital Management
- Working capital is the set of balance sheet items that would be included
under current assets and current liabilities.
- Includes the assets if cash, marketable securities, accounts receivable
(debtors), and inventories; the liabilities of accounts payable (creditors),
short-term borrowings, and other liabilities coming due within one year.
Total
benefit
and
total
cost Max. net benefit
Optimum usage
33
Amount of short-term assets used
Management of Cash Balances
- As indicated above cash and near cash assets (interest earning bank
deposits and short-term marketable securities) confer the liquidity benefit to
companies investing in them.
- In company operational language, liquidity means such assets are used for:
a. Transaction balances – reality that debts must eventually be paid in
cash.
b. Precautionary/anticipatory reserves – recognise that there may be
events that cannot be anticipated which require cash, as well as
anticipated future cash needs of major dimensions.
c. Compensating balances – cash amounts contractually left on deposit
with banks.
- The costs of cash balances are the transactions costs of switching between
higher and lower interest-bearing securities and accounts, and the
differential interest rate earned.
- Management of the process requires that there is enough cash on hand to
meet the transaction, precautionary, anticipatory, and compensating
requirements of the company, while minimising the transaction costs and
foregone interest.
- A simple model of cash usage:
Usage
Maximum
Cash Replenishment
Balances
Minimum
Time
$U
Cash
Balances $R
$M
Time
- $M is the lower bound, the minimum amount of cash below which the
balance is not allowed to fall, $U is the upper bound; and $R is a return point.
- Process works as follows; when cash falls to $M enough interest bearing
securities are cashed to return the balance to $R. When cash balances
34
increase to $U, securities are bought with excess cash to again bring the
balance to $R.
- If $U and $R are well chosen, the costs of maintaining the cash balance are
minimised. The formula below chooses $R;
$R = [(3 x $T x s2) / 4I]1/3 + $M
where $T and i are as above, and s2 is the variance of the changes in cash
balances – if the amount of increase / decrease in cash balances is
expected, by the probability distribution, to be $c for each of the number of
times (t) cash balances can change per day, s2 = $C2 x t.
- $U is part of this solution;
$U = $M +3 ($R - $M)
- One note of caution is that technological change has and will continue to
relegate much of the above analysis to little practical significance due to
electronic funds transfers.
Management of Receivables
- Companies usually find it necessary to hold accounts receivable and
inventory stocks.
- Inventories are handled similarly to cash (but with the cost of shortages
considered).
- A higher level of receivables promises more credit sales and thus more
customers willing to purchase, but also portends to longer waits until the
actual receipt of cash from a sale and a higher likelihood of never being paid
(bad debt).
- One issue in the investment in receivables is the deterioration in the quality
of customer credit accompanying an increase in the amounts owed to the
company. Ways of discerning who should receive credit:
a. Credit-reporting agencies supply information to a company at a cost.
b. A company’s own records of customer payment histories can yield
useful information about the likelihood of a customer paying.
c. Sophisticated statistical analysis (i.e. discriminant analysis).
- At some point rejecting the marginal customer ceases to be worthwhile. This
is the point where incremental expenditure for search and evaluation
exceeds the expected gain from discriminating.
a. If company accepts everybody – Expected Profit = (# of good
customers x profit per customer) + (#of bad customers x loss per
customer).
b. If company performs a credit analysis – Add (- the cost of the credit
analysis).
- Caution: a company who accepts everybody must keep it private or else the
ratio of bad to good customers will rise.
- One other approach to the management of receivables is to calculate the
NPV associated with a proposed change in credit terms for a company, or;
NPV = Change in PV of sales receipts – change in the variable costs –
change in working capital management.
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- When a firm takes advantage of credit extended by a vendor (known as trade
credit), there is usually a set of payment conditions associated. Almost
always these conditions have a time when final payment is due, but also a
(shorter) time during which payment would produce a discount from the
market price of what has been bought.
- Usually these payment terms are described by a phrase such as 2/10 net 30
which signifies that there is a 2% discount for payment within 10 days of
invoicing and that payment beyond that is at full market price and is due in 30
days.
- The proper standard to judge when to pay is the cost of financing the money
that would be used to pay early, or the interest rate on such short term
borrowing.
- This interest cost is composed of an annualised discount percentage given
for early payment. The formula is:
i = (1 + [discount % / (1 – discount %)]365/discount days
Liquidity Ratios
Profitability Ratios
Return on Specific Assets (e.g. Inventory) = Net Profits after Taxes / Specific Asset
- The second group of ratios analyse how the company’s assets have been
finance.
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- Gearing ratios (leverage) measure the contributions of shareholders with the
financing provided by the company’s creditors and other providers of loan
capital.
- Companies with low gearing ratios have less risk when the economy goes
into a recession, but also have lower returns when the economy recovers.
Companies with high gearing ratios experience the opposite.
Times Interest Earned = Profit before Taxes + Interest Charges / Interest Charges
Efficiency Ratios
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Module XI – International Financial Management
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- The key to remember is that inflation in a given currency affects the future
purchasing power of that currency.
- An important determinant of the forward exchange rate between any two
currencies is the expectation of differential inflation rates in the two
currencies.
- In purely domestic financial markets when money is lent the return one
expects to receive is usually stated in nominal terms, or the actual figure you
expect to receive.
- What is not guaranteed is what the money will buy. If inflation is expected to
exist during the loan period, the real (stated in terms of purchasing power)
return is expected to be less than the nominal return. Calculated by;
Nominal interest rate = real interest rate + effect of inflation
(1+ nominal rate)n = (1+ real rate)n x (1+ inflation rate)n
n
where is the number of periods in question
- Since money can be kept in any currency it is reasonable to expect that
purchasing power parity across time as well as across currencies will be
maintained by the foreign exchange market.
- It is not surprising then that the ratio of the forward exchange rate to the spot
exchange rate mirrors the ratio of expected inflation rates in the two
currencies.
- Interest rate differentials are caused by inflation differentials, which are the
root cause of the observed discount or premium on forward exchange.
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currency NPV, and to translate the resulting foreign currency value at the
spot exchange rate to find the domestic value for shareholders.
- Another issue is that of adjusting for the risks entailed in foreign investments
per se. The tenets for financial managers to keep in mind are:
a. Remember the benefits of diversification – if a company’s
shareholders are not well diversified across international borders, a
foreign investment may deserve a lower risk profile than a purely
domestic one assuming the foreign investments cash flows are not
well correlated with a comparable domestic one. If they are the
consideration is neutral.
b. Remember the relative uncertainties of the investment – alterations
in foreign trade laws, exchange restrictions, asset confiscation, and
friction repatriation can increase the risk of a foreign investment. A
good analysis of these issues would wish to consider these relative
to comparable domestic risks and add a foreign risk premium only if
truly deserved.
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Module XII – Advanced Topics: Options, Agency, Derivatives, and Financial Engineering
Options
- Options are contingent claims, payoffs to an option depend on what happens
to another value or cash flow often of another security.
- A call option allows one to purchase (call) another security or asset at a fixed
price for a fixed period of time.
- The shares that can be purchased are known as the underlying assets for
the option.
- The price the option allows you to purchase the shares is called a striking or
exercise price.
- The final date you can exercise the option is known as the expiration date.
- With respect to when options can be exercised there are two types;
European, which can only be exercised at expiration; and American, which
can be exercised any time before or at expiration.
- When an option can be exercised profitably it is said to be in the money,
when it cannot it is out of the money.
- On option owner (holder) need not exercise the option if he chooses not to
do so.
- The issuer of the option is often termed the option writer. Rarely are options
ever exercised in the sense of shares trading hands, usually its just money.
This minimizes transaction costs.
- If the writer actually owns the underlying securities, the option is called a
covered option or a covered call.
- If the value of the underlying security is less than or equal to the striking price
the exercise value of the option is zero.
- Another type of option is a put. Allows the holder to sell something at a fixed
price for a fixed period of time.
- Puts have positive exercise value to the holder when the underlying assets
value is less than the striking price.
- Other combinations of puts/calls are formed (spreads, strips, straddles,
hedges, butterflies) in complex transactions so as to generate a particular
risk-return exposure to the holder or writer.
So = $1.50
- By invoking the law of one price we can discover Co by calculating the value
of another investment that offers the same future cash flow expectations
(AKA a call equivalent portfolio). This can be found by forming a portfolio of
the underlying shares, in combination with borrowing or lending money.
Three more pieces of notation;
rf = risk-free interest rate
Y = the number of underlying shares to purchase
Z = the amount lending (if +) or borrowing (if -) at the risk-free
rate
- The payoff if underlying shares increase becomes;
YoSo + Z(1 + rf) = Cu
- If shares decrease it becomes;
YdSo + Z(1 + rf) = Cd
- Therefore the value of the option is equal to the cost of the call equivalent
portfolio, or;
YSo + Z
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ln = an instruction to find the natural log of the bracketed
expression.
σ = instantaneous standard deviation of the price of the
underlying security.
- There are five variables for determining option value; S o, X, rf, σ, and T.
- So and X identify the exercise value of the option, and how far in or
out of the money the option is located. Recall that at the money
options carry the highest premiums.
- rf determines how much money must be set aside so as to exercise
the option at expiration; as interest rates increase, the present value
of the future outlay to exercise declines, and therefore option value
increases.
- σ is also positively related to option value. Any random movement in
the underlying security price is more likely to help than harm option
value.
- As T increases, option value increases; reflect the increased odds
that the security will experience some increase in price, the longer
the time until maturity.
Agency
- Many economists think that an efficient market for company take-overs is an
important solution to the agency problem of manager-shareholder conflict.
- Any solution to an agency problem requires that there be an overall gain in
solving the problem, which is allocated in such a way that the agent has an
incentive to participate in the solution.
Derivatives
- Any financial security whose return or outcome set is derived from some
other assets value or return outcome.
- Simple derivatives can be very dangerous when misapplied.
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- Stock Market: futures contracts on market indexes, options on market
indexes, options on individual securities.
- Mortgage: complex derivatives.
- Foreign Exchange: forward / future contracts, options, swaps.
- Real Asset: forward / future contracts, options contracts.
- Hybrids and Exotics
Swaps
- Derivatives designed to allow hedging the risks of interest rate and foreign
exchange-rate movements.
- Where one party exchanges a stream of cash flow with a counter-party, who
provides the other stream of cash flow to be exchanged.
Exotics
- True derivatives, but formulated from combinations or mixtures of other types
of derivatives.
- They are tailored to the very specific risk exposures of a single firm, and can
be very complicated.
- Paid off on the contingency that some type of interest rate increased above a
particular cap rate, or declined below a particular floor rate (the distance
between the two being termed a wedding band).
Financial Engineering
- Closely intertwined with the ideas and markets of derivative securities and
risk hedging.
- The nuts and bolts of designing a hybrid or exotic financial security to fit very
specific risk-shaping intentions of a firm.
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