finance/accounting/corporate finance

finance/accounting/corporate finance

InterActive BSc Business Management
BSc Financial Management
Module Corporate Finance – FIN 2060 (Year 2)
Assignment
Title
CF Coursework
Assignment Type Individual Assignment
Word Limit 1500 words
Weighting 50%
Issue Date 2
nd November 2015
Submission Date 30st November 2015
Issued by
(Assessor)
Reza Beheshti
Internal Verifier Peter Jansen
Plagiarism When submitting work for assessment, students should be aware of the
InterActive guidance and regulations concerning plagiarism. All
submissions should be your own, original work.
You must submit an electronic copy of your work. Your submission will
be electronically checked.
Harvard
Referencing
The Harvard Referencing System must be used. The Wikipedia website
must not be referenced in your work.
Learning
Outcomes
On successful completion of this assignment you will be able to:
1. Analyse fundamental corporate finance decisions and discuss their
applications
2. Apply the investment decision rules of the traditional and
discounted cash flow methods in analysing investment decisions
and discussing the outputs, while utilising the outputs for
investment decisions
3. Be able to compute cost of capital; discuss and critically evaluate
working capital policies and apply cash management models in
analysing business working capital policies.
Marking Criteria Undergraduate Marking Criteria for this assignment is available at the end
of this document.
Your Task As an experienced advisor within corporate finance you have been hired to
help the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Wemere, a medium-sized
private company, to address a number of issue currently on his table and
left unaddressed since the departure of the last Chief Financial Officer
(CFO).
Tackle each issue by preparing a report to the CEO which will represent the
comprehensive delivery of all the work done for him during your time in
this role.
Question One:
Given the following corporate objectives, provide a reasoned argument
explaining which of them should be the main goal of the financial manager
(which will be hired for the long term when all your tasks as advisor will
have been completed):
a. Profit maximisation;
b. Sales maximisation;
c. Maximisation of benefit to employees and the local community;
d. Maximisation of shareholder wealth.
Also explain how a financial manager can, in practice, maximise the wealth
of shareholders.
[20 Marks]
Question Two:
Three investment projects have the following net cash flows. Decide which
of them should be accepted using the NPV decision rule of the discount
rate to be applied is 12 per cent.
[20 Marks]
Year Project A
(£)
Project B
(£)
Project C
(£)
0 (10,000) (15,000) (20,000)
1 5,000 5,000 10,000
2 5,000 5,000 10,000
3 2,000 5,000 4,000
4 1,000 10,000 2,000
5 5,000
Question Three:
The “woodpulp” project has an initial cost of £13,000 and the firm’s riskfree
interest rate is assumed to be 10 per cent. If certainty equivalents and
net cash flows (NCFs) for the project are as below, should the project be
accepted?
[20 Marks]
Year Certainty equivalents Net cash flows (£)
1 0.90 8,000
2 0.85 7,000
3 0.80 7,000
4 0.75 5,000
5 0.70 5,000
6 0.65 5,000
7 0.60 5,000
Question Four:
The CEO wishes to improve the company’s investment decision-making
process by using discounted cash flow techniques. He is disappointed to
learn that estimates of a company’s cost of equity usually require
information on share prices which, for a private company, are not
available. His deputy suggests that the cost of equity can be estimated by
using data for Folten plc, a similar sized company in the same industry
whose shares are listed on the AIM (part of the London Stock Exchange)
and he has produced two suggested discount rates to use in Wemere’s
future investment appraisal. Both of these estimates are in excess of 17 per
cent p.a., which the CEO believes to be very high, especially as the
company has just agreed a fixed rate bank loan at 13 per cent p.a. to
finance a small expansion of existing operations. He has checked the
calculations, which are numerically correct, but wonders if there are any
errors of principle.
Estimate 1: capital asset pricing Model
Data have been purchased from a leading business school
Equity Beta of Folten: 1.4
Market return: 18%
Treasury Bill yield:12%
The cost of capital is 18% + (18% – 12%) 1.4= 26.4%. This rate must be
adjusted to include inflation at the current level of 6 per cent. The
recommended discount rate is 32.4 per cent.
Estimate 2: Dividend Growth Model
Folten plc
Year Average share Price
(pence)
Dividend per share
(pence)
1985 193 9.23
1986 109 10.06
1987 86 10.97
1988 116 11.95
1989 130 13.03
The cost of capital is: D1 /(p – g), where D1 is the expected dividend, P is
the market price and g is the growth rate of individuals (= 14.20p / (138p –
9)= 11.01%).
When inflation is included, the discount rate is 17.01 per cent.
Other financial information on the two companies is presented below:
Wemere
£ 000
Folten
£000
Fixed assets 7,200 7,600
Current assets 7,600 7,800
Less: current liabilities (3,900)
10,900
(3,700)
11,700
Financed by:
Ordinary shares (25 pence) 2,000 1,800
Reserves 6,500 5,500
Term loans 2,400
10,900
4,400
11,700
Notes:
1- The current ex-div share price of Folten plc is 138
pence.
2- Wemere’s board of directors has recently rejected a
takeover bid of £ 10.6 million.
3- Corporate tax paid at the rate of 35 per cent.
Required:
a. Explain any errors of principle that have been made in the two
estimates of the cost of capital and produce revised estimates using
both of the methods. State clearly any assumptions that you make.
b. Discuss which of your revised estimates Wemere should use as the
discount rate for capital investment appraisal.
[40 Marks]
Guidelines Please read all questions and information provided carefully. Answer
should be made in appropriate length keeping in view the requirement of
each question and total word counts allowed.
In addition, your assignment should demonstrate the following qualities:
A critical appreciation of relevant literature and its use to support
argument, substantiate calculations and other aspects of the assignment.
Taking ownership of the content, being prepared to debate and argue a
personal position, and providing evidence of evaluative skills. A
submission made up of extracts from published sources which is
descriptive or simply just theoretical regurgitation is not acceptable. Your
submission must have interpretation and consideration of the challenges
and issues of taking theory into practice.
Logical flow of ideas and treatment; appropriate selection of real world
factors related to the companies under scrutiny.
Evidence of additional personal research, and the ability to analyse
material from a variety of appropriate relevant perspectives.
Presentation, structure, appropriateness of methodology, breaking into
section headings/subheadings, tidiness.
Marks will be awarded for proper referencing and originality of work. Also
note that plagiarism is a serious offence and your submission will be
electronically checked.
Your report must be handed in electronically no later than given date of
submission.
Marking Criteria
70-100 Distinction (A+/A) 60-69 Merit (B+/B) 50-59 Pass (C/D) 0-49 Fail (E/F)
All learning outcomes /
assessment criteria have
been achieved to a high
standard, and the
majority of criteria at an
exceptionally high level
All learning outcomes/
assessment criteria have
been met fully at a good
or very good standard
All learning outcomes/
assessment criteria have
been met and some may
have been achieved at a
good standard.
One or more of the
learning outcomes/
assessment criteria
have not been met
An outstanding/excellent
response to the task. The
work demonstrates most
or all of the following
characteristics in relation
to those expected at the
given level of study within
the discipline:
 In-depth
understanding,
exploration,
insight and/or
research
 All specifications
for the
assessment task,
including word
limit/time limit
where
appropriate, have
been adhered to
 The organisation,
structure and
standard of
presentation of
the work,
including
referencing are
excellent/exempla
ry throughout
 The work has
been approached
and/or
executed/perform
ed in an original
way
 Inspirational,
innovative and
authoritative –
insightful
contextualisation
including relevant
theory /
literature/
artifacts/
performance
 Evidence of high
to very high
quality analysis,
synthesis,
A good to very good
response to the task. The
work demonstrates most
or all of the following
characteristics in relation
to those expected at the
given level of study within
the discipline:
 Good to very
good
understanding
and exploration,
some insight
and/or thorough
research
 No significant
inaccuracies,
misunderstanding
s or errors
 The specifications
for the
assessment task,
including word
limit/time limit
where
appropriate, have
been adhered to
 The work is well
organised,
coherent and the
standard of
presentation,
including
referencing where
appropriate, is
above average
 The work has
been approached
and/or
executed/perform
ed in a
comprehensive
and appropriate
way
 Appropriate
contextualisation,
including relevant
theory/ literature/
artifacts/performa
A sound, competent
response to the task. The
work demonstrates most
or all of the following
characteristics in relation
to those expected at the
given level of study within
the discipline:
 Sound
understanding
and exploration,
some insight
and/or
appropriate
research
 No significant
inaccuracies
and/or
misunderstanding
s
 No significant
aberrations from
the specifications
for the
assessment task,
including word
limit/time limit
where
appropriate
 The work is
suitably organized
and the standard
of presentation,
including
referencing where
appropriate, is at
a fair quality
 The work has
been approached
and/or
executed/perform
ed in a standard
way
 Sound analysis,
synthesis,
evaluation and
critical appraisal
 Demonstrates
some levels of
An unsatisfactory
response to the task. The
work may display some
strengths but these are
outweighed by several
weak features in relation
to the expectations for
the given level of study
within the discipline,
such as:
 Limited or no
understanding
and/or
exploration of
major ideas
with very little
insight and/or
minimal
research
 Some significant
inaccuracies
and/or
misunderstandi
ngs
 Insufficient
attention to the
assessment
criteria and
some significant
aberrations
from the
specifications
for the
assessment task
 The work is too
descriptive,
parts of the
work are
disorganised
and unclear and
the standard of
presentation,
including
referencing
where
appropriate, is
poor
 The work has
been
evaluation and
critical appraisal
 Demonstrates
high to very high
levels of initiative,
personal
responsibility,
decision
-making
and achievement
nce
 Evidence of high
quality analysis,
synthesis,
evaluation and
critical appraisal
 Demonstrates
good levels of
initiative, personal
responsibility,
decision
-making
and achievement
initiative, personal
responsibility,
decision
-making
and achievement
approached
and/or
executed/perfor
med in a poor
way
 Insufficient or
no evidence of
analysis,
synthesis,
evaluation and
critical appraisal
 Little or no
evidence of
initiative,
personal
responsibility,
decision
-making
and
achievement

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