Executive Summary As a Deep-Discount Brokerage firm, Ameritrade Holding Corporation (AHC) plans to invest in advertising and technology in order to increase their consumer base and thus revenues. The purpose of this report is to assess the riskiness of the proposed investments by considering the project’s cost of capital calculated via the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). A range of factors will be considered in order to assess each possible variable that may influence the result. Areas of focus include the risk free rate, market index average returns, the market risk premium, identifying suitable comparables and calculating the asset betas. The appropriate risk free rate was calculated using U.S. 10-year securities with an annualized …show more content…
Therefore greater weight was given to the discount brokerage comparables as a source of beta estimates. It is noted that E*Trade is not used as their historical data is limited and does not meet the investment horizon (Figure6.) Computing Asset Betas (Figure1) 3 The first step in calculating the beta for the chosen comparables was to use the monthly stock price information to calculate the % excess returns for a period of 5 years (1992-1996). Again VW index was used as the source of monthly market return data points. To calculate the excess returns of each stock, (End price – starting price + dividend)/starting price, was used. This data was plotted against the monthly market index returns using the excel function “SLOPE” which enabled the betas to be calculated. The historical data varied slightly for each comparable, therefore 5-year investment horizons of 1992 to 1996 and 1992 to the most recent historical data available was found using the same methodologies for each comparable (Figure7) noting the betas found are fully levered. The next step involved finding the unlevered beta using the debt/equity ratios (Figure9), a 35% tax assumption, the Hamada equation and data from Figure 8 , the unlevered beta for each comparable were calculated, shown Figure 10. Leaving us with(U = 2.045). Analysis and Summary Cost of Capital Using the CAPM, the project’s cost of capital is found to be 25.5%. This Figure represents
For the purpose of calculating the net present value of the project, an appropriate cost of capital has to be calculated at which free cash flows of the project should be discounted. Since the project will be solely financed by selling new shares, cost of equity will be used as the discount rate. Beta for the company can be assumed to be equal to average of the betas of the competitors of the company. This average beta value comes out to be 1.2. Risk free rate is 0.17% while risk premium has been estimated to be 6%. Thus by putting these values in CAPM formula, we can find the cost of equity for the company which is 7.39%.
The firm has decided to increase the debt finance component portion from 20% to 30% which is a good decision since the interest payments are 100% tax deductible. The appropriate capital structure would be to
After levering the equity beta, the asset beta of the firms are calculated. As mentioned we think that the three discount brokerages (highlighted in green) should be used as comparables for Ameritrade. The average asset beta of the three firms is 1.386. As a comparison the investment services firms have average asset beta of 0.603 and the one internet company (Mecklermedia) for which enough historical data is
We use Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) approach to calculate the cost of equity. The formula of CAPM is re = rf + β × (E[RMkt] – rf).
At the new WACC of 19%, the home appliance and agricultural machinery projects are valued based on their inherent levels of risk. The beta of the industry average home appliance project is 0.95, whereas the beta for the industry average agricultural machine project is calculated as 0.88. CAPM was then employed to find the cost of capital of each project. The cost of capital for the home appliance and agricultural machinery projects were found to be 10.4% and 9.92%, respectively (Appendix B). This analysis allows Star Company to allocate funds to projects that create returns greater than the industry cost of capital for each specific project.
Here we choose VW NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ data as market returns, because it’s value weighted and more reliable. The results show CSC’s equity beta = 2.27, QRG’s equity beta = 1.79.
A correct response requires that you find an appropriate industry beta and measure for levered/unlevered betas and requires that you define cost of equity capital and free cash flow (FCF) – you may need a formula for FCF.
* Stock Beta: Exhibit 5 shows a detailed measurement of the company’s stock returns in relation to the rest of the market through 5-year historical price and index data. The analysis includes monthly returns of both the NYSE and the S&P 500 index in order to capture a comprehensive view of the market return. In each comparison, the monthly returns of the Target stock and market are plotted on Y-axis and X-axis respectively to get the regression line’s slope or beta. The analysis arrives at an average beta of 0.988 which indicates a similar movement of Target stock’s returns in comparison to the whole market over time.
Star Appliance is looking to expand their product line and is considering three different projects: dishwashers, garbage disposals, and trash compactors. We want to determine which project would be worth doing by determining if they will add value to Star. Thus, the project(s) that will add the most value to Star Appliance will be worth pursuing. The current hurdle rate of 10% should be re-evaluated by finding the weighted average cost of capital (WACC). Then by forecasting the cash flows of each project and discounting them by the WACC to find the net present value, or by solving for the internal rate of return, we should be able to see which projects Star should undertake.
To find the cost of equity we used the formula rs = rRF + beta*MRP in which rRF2002 = 5.86% and the Market Risk Premium (MRP) = 5% as calculated by the Southwest Airlines finance department. We then calculated the beta for Southwest Airlines based on a regression analysis of five-year monthly returns on Southwest stock from January 1997 to January 2002, compared with the S&P 500 returns over the same period. This regression analysis indicated that Beta = .2219. Therefore,
Utilizing the fundamental concepts of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the expected return for Wal-Mart stock is 7.01% [E(R)]. This is a result of a risk-free rate (Rf) of 3.68%, which was the provided 10-year government bond yield to use as a proxy for the risk-free rate. The beta (β ) of Wal-Mart was 0.66 according to the provided Bloomberg beta estimate. Additional data was provided on the U.S. market risk premium [E(RM) – Rf] of 5.05%. In following the general concepts of CAPM, there are some general assumptions: no transaction costs, all assets are publicly traded,
We use the equation ri=(Pt-Pt-1+Dt)/Pt-1 to calculate the monthly return of stock of Charles Schwab Corp, Quick & Reilly Group and Waterhouse Investor Srvcs. Then we have two methods to calculate the Beta of Equity for each company.
This essay will highlight the use of Capital asset pricing model ( CAPM ) to be considered as a pricing theory model for assets . CAPM model helps investors to analyse the risk and what expectation to keep from an investment (Banz , 1981) . There are two types of risk
For this variable we take again the same risk free rate (4.66%) plus the equity market risk premium (5%) multiplied by the equity Beta of the E & P division (1.40). The beta we calculate with the comparables. The average equity beta in this industry is 1.15 and the average D/E ratio is 39.8%. With these information and the same formula as in question 3 we compute the asset beta
We use the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to determine the cost of equity. As