Walmart Case Answers.Final

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Hofstra University *

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9130

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Finance

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Apr 3, 2024

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1 ESTIMATING WALMART’S COST OF CAPITAL 1) What is the cost of capital? Why do Dale and Lee care about the cost of capital? Cost of capital represents the return a company needs to achieve in order to justify the cost of a capital project. Includes the cost of equity and debt. They want to know the cost of capital is because we want to know what hurdle rate Walmart should use for its annual investments in capital projects, which represent billions of dollars each year. 2) How should Dale and Lee go about estimating the cost of long-term debt? What about short term debt? The yield to maturity (YTM) on outstanding long-term debt is often used as a measure of cost of long-term debt. As stated in the case, the cost of long-term debt is estimated to be the average YTM of 3.53% Short-term debt is a firm's financial obligations that are expected to be paid off within a year. To calculate short term debt, we deduct long term debt from current liabilities. Another way is using the three-month commercial paper average of 2.73%, stated in the case. 3) If Walmart had preferred shares, or planned to issue preferred shares how would Dale and Lee deal with them? If there were preferred shares, they would need to be incorporated into the WACC formula. To estimate the cost of preferred shares, the dividend rate is divided by the market price per share. Additionally, they would need to calculate the dividend rate and also add it to their calculations. 4) How might Dale and Lee go about estimating the cost of equity? Cost of equity is estimated using CAPM = Risk-Free Rate (Rf) + Beta (β) * (Rm - Rf) Rf = 2.65% (10-year US Treasury bonds) β = 0.71 (adjusted beta) Rm = 12.98% (geometric avg of the S&P500 returns between 2009 to 2018) CAPM= 2.65 + 0.71(10.33) = 9.98% 5) What is the overall weighted average cost of capital (WACC)? WACC = w d k d (1-T) + w s k s Samuel, Sunil and Victoria
2 ESTIMATING WALMART’S COST OF CAPITAL w d = D/V = 52,260,000 / 353,239,000 = 0.15 k d = 3.53 (YTM) T = 0.21 w s = Es/V = 300,979,000 / 353,239,000 = 0.85 k s = 9.98 (CAPM) V = D + Es D = 52,260,000 (*avg of short-term & long-term debt b/w 2018-19) Es = 300,979,000 (2,945,000 outstanding shares @ $102.20 market price) V = 353,239,000 WACC = 0.15*3.53*(1-0.21) + 0.85*9.98 = 8.91% 6) How does all of this relate to hurdle rates that Walmart might use? A hurdle rate is the minimum rate of return required on a project or investment. The riskier the project the higher the hurdle rate needs to be. WACC can be used to determine hurdle rates when evaluating the IRR or NPV of a project/investment (riskier projects add a premium on WACC). The IRR of the project should be higher than the WACC in order to accept the project. (Walmart should use 8.91% as the WACC when determining hurdle rates). An example of a hurdle rate would be the WACC + Project Risk Premium. Samuel, Sunil and Victoria
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