1. How would you evaluate the capital budgeting method used historically by AES? What’s good and bad about it?
“When AES undertook primarily domestic contract generation projects where the risk of changes to input and output prices was minimal, a project finance framework was employed.”
Usually, project finance framework is used when the project has predictable cash flows, which can easily represent operating targets through explicit contract. When cash flows are certainty, the company can have higher level of leverage and it is easier to separate project assets from the parent company.
Advantages and Disadvantages: 1) Advantages a. Maximize Leverage b. Off-Balance Sheet Treatment c. Agency Cost d. Multilateral
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project and Pakistan project are 8.07% (4.5%+3.47%), in which both U.S. project and Pakistan project have a same spread, 3.47%.
To adjust we add the sovereign risk into calculation. In Exhibit 7a, the sovereign risk for the U.S. is 0% but for Pakistan is 9.9%. We thereby get the new evaluation of the cost of capital and cost of debt, which are constant for U.S. and rise to 17.1% and 17.97% for Pakistan.
Finally we calculate the WACC. The formula is leveraged beta * (cost of capital) + Debt to capital * (cost of debt) * (1-tax rate). Then we get for the U.S. WACC= 6.48% and for Pakistan WACC= 15.93%.
Finally, we should adjust the WACC with its risk score. Because everything is calculated in U.S. dollar, the U.S. risk score is 0. So the U.S. projects WACC is constant. The Pakistan risk premium is 1.425. So the change is 1.425 * 500= 705bp = 7.05%. Therefore, we get the final Pakistan WACC, which is 23.08% (15.93%+7.05%).
In conclusion, the difference between the U.S. and Pakistan projects is 16.60%. Obviously, the U.S. project looks much more favorable.
3. Does this make sense as a way to do capital budgeting?
The financial strategy employed by AES was historically based on project finance. The model worked well in the domestic market and in the international operations. However, when AES started its diversification of business, it had to face to increasing symmetrical risks, such as business risk. In addition, project finance did not include the risk of
According to the company’s annual report in 2009, the Federal statutory tax rate is 35%. Along with the above analysis, we have gathered all the key information necessary to estimate the WACC as following:
Since this project is a going concern, the levered terminal and present values are calculated using the weight average cost of capital (WACC) as the discount rate, which we calculate to be 16.17%.
In order to find the WACC, we need to find the cost of the components of the capital structure and their proportion in the total capital.
Lastly, the interest rate was calculated by dividing interest expense by long-term debt for the company. These numbers, along with equity and debt data given to us in the case, resulted in a WACC of 13.89%.
Then we can use the following formula to calculate the WACC. The cost of debt is taken to be on an after tax basis to further to account for the depreciation tax shield.
At first, WACC and CAPM was attempted to be used as a source of cost of capital. However, for WACC, there is no available proportion of debt and cost of debt for MW. For CAPM, no available data seems to support the acceptable
1.1. Review principles of estimating project cash flows. Suggested reading: Ch. 9 “Capital Budgeting and Cash Flow Analysis” in “Contemporary Financial Management”, 11th ed. by Moyer, McGuigan, and Kretlow.
1. Given the proposed financing plan, describe your approach (qualitatively) to value AirThread. Should Ms. Zhang use WACC, APV or some combination thereof? Explain. (2 points)
Government interest rates from Table B, 8.72%. The 10 year rate was chosen to be consistent with time lengths. Then the value for equity, debt and the firm need to be calculated, this is a simple step. The market price of the shares is multiplied by the number of outstanding shares to find the value of equity and the book value of long term debt is used for the value of debt and the value of both equity and debt are added together to come up with the value of the firm. The weight of the equity and debt can now be calculated by dividing the value of equity or debt by the value of the company. Lastly, the tax rate was calculated by using the balance sheet, given in exhibit 1, to determine income taxes paid and dividing it by earnings before interest and taxes for each of the last ten years then by taking the average of the ten years tax rates.
The effect of financial leverage on the cost of equity is prevalent in the Modigliani-Miller capital structure theory. Since the financial leverage increases the cost of equity, it can be considered one of the disadvantages of borrowing. As shown in Appendix A, the cost of equity, at each debt to capital ratio, increases by 0.1% as the financial leverage increases by 10%. With a higher
Project finance is a kind of Financing that has a priority does not depend on the creditworthiness of the sponsors proposing the business idea to launch the project. Approval does not even depend on the value of assets sponsors are willing to make available as collateral. Instead, it is basically a function of the project’s ability to repay the debt contracted and remunerate capital invested at a rate consistent with the degree of
All of these calculated figures can then be used to calculate the WACC which is (17% x 3.47%) + (83% x 11.2%) = 9.87% WACC. This WACC percentage can then be used to value the investment and as a comparative in valuation methods. The full calculation and numerical values are shown in Appendix 1.
WACC = (Weight of Equity * Equity Cost of Capital) + (Weight of Debt * Debt Cost of Capital)
WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital) is a market weighted average, at target leverage, of the cost of after tax debt and equity.
The risk premium should be calculated by using holding-period returns, as 9.90%-3.48%= 6.42%. Then we can compute the cost of equity is 3.48%+0.97*(6.42%) =9.71%. According to Exhibit1, 1987, we calculate the tax rate by dividing income tax over EBIT. $175.9/$398.9=44%. Then we can calculate the firm’s WACC = (1-44%)*(9.34%)*60%+9.71%*40%=7.02%.