Blaine Kitchenware

3) The interest resulting from the debt also will cost to the company even it is taxable. The interest is fixed base on the level of the debt even the company does not generate profit. This would need to be careful when take on the debt comparing to use its own capital. And the creditor may come to intervene on the business when the company has difficulty to service its debt.

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

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

Although the increased leverage decreases the amount of earnings available to stock holders from 496.9 million to 451.7 million for a total of 45.2 million dollars, it has a positive affect for the company’s tax structure. It actually reduces the company’s tax liability by 83 million dollars! Without the debt they have to pay 952.5 million dollars in taxes. However after an increase of 30% leverage, the new tax liability is 869.5 million dollars.

The ROE is actually very good in comparison to other market participants especially in 2003, but dropped significantly in 2004. Likewise the ROA dropped. Due to the fact that there was no decline in sales, the constantly rising operating expenses can be seen as a reason.

A capital structure policy aims to balance the trade-off between the benefits of debt financing (interest tax shield) and the costs of debt financing (financial distress and agency costs). Every firm should set its target capital structure such that its cost and benefits of leverage ultimately maximise the firm’s value. Graham and Harvey asked 392 firms’ chief financial officers whether they use target debt ratios. Results show that the majority of them do, although the level of strictness of the target policy varies across different companies. Only 19% of the firms avoid target ratios, of which most are likely to be the relatively smaller firms. This clearly

Adding more debt into capital structure will reduce agency As more debts are added, agency cost of debt cost of equity as managers are left with less free cash flow Lowest agency cost of equity. would be further reduced. that could have been exploited for perk consumption. Since part of the earnings is paid to meet the debt repayments, dividends paid deceases comparing with actual 2011. But this is counter-balanced by increased earnings per share (EPS) as the shares outstanding is reduced Comparing with 20% leverage, dividend continues to decrease but EPS

The advantage of debt financing is that interests paid on such debt are tax deductible. If a company has the intention of maintaining a permanent debt, the present value of the tax shield can be obtained by discounting them by the expected rate of return demanded by the investors who hold the debt (this is a perpetuity, where in reality would be the maximum possible present value for the tax shield). This tax shield value reduces the tax bill and increases the cash payment to investors, increasing the value of their investments.

Firstly, interest on debt is tax deductible, therefore, debt is the least costly source of long-term financing as this is a tax saving for the frim. Thus, creditors or bondholders require a lower return on debt as it is considered a reflectively less risky investment. Secondly, the capital structure of a firm is flexible due to debt financing. Ultimately, bondholders are creditors and they do not have voting rights, hence, they are not involved in decision making and business operations. Additionally, the major advantages of equity finance are as follows. Firstly, the capital provided is to finance the businesses short term needs and future projects. Secondly, the business will not have to pay any additional bank expenses such as interest on loans, thus allowing the business to use the money for business activities. Lastly, investors anticipate that the business will develop thus they help in exploring and executing thoughts. Certain sources, for example, venture capitalists and business angel can bring significant skills, abilities, contacts and experience to businesses and they can also provide expertise advice to businesses (Hofstrand,

However, I believe the market will see this change too little leverage. Although Blaine is facing considerable competition from imports, the industry as a whole as well as Blaine do not have a high degree of business risk. Blaine, with a 21.8% LTD/Equity ratio and an 18.95 Times Interest Earned ration, would have the ability to take more leverage and to pay off debt. I also believe that there might be some concerns about the cash position of the firm. With only 21M remaining cash that is required for operating activities, I would doubt if the company would be able to maintain a steady dividend payout as well as to react to emergencies.

However, because the interest of debt could shield part of earnings from taxes and strengthen management’s incentive to increase sales. Some financial analysts hold the view that companies should take appropriate debt. The tax expense could be decreased along with the increase of debt.

On April 27, 2007, Victor Dubinski, CEO of Blaine Kitchenware, Inc. (BKI), sat in his office

Already in 1958, Modigliani and Miller have pointed the discussion of capital structure towards the cost of debt and equity. According to their first proposition, in a world of no corporate taxes and with perfect markets, financial leverage has no effect on a firm’s value. In their second proposition, they state that the cost of equity equals a linear function defined by the required return on assets and the cost of debt (Modigliani and Miller, 1958).

The relationship between capital structure and firm value has been discussed frequently in the literature by different researcher accordingly, in both theoretical and empirical studies. It has also been discussed that whether the firm has any optimal capital structure that has been adopted by an individual firm, or whether the proportions of debt usage is completely irrelevant to the individual firm value.

Harris and Reviv (1990) gave one more reason of using debt in capital structure. They say that management will hide information from shareholders about the liquidation of the firm even if the liquidation will be in the best interest of shareholders because managers want the perpetuation of their service. Similarly, Amihud and Lev (1981) suggest that mangers have incentives to pursue strategies that reduce their employment risk. This conflict can be solved by increasing the use of debt financing since bondholders will take control of the firm in case of default as they are powered to do so by the debt indentures. Stulz (1990) said when shareholders cannot observe either the investing decisions of management or the cash flow position in the firm, they will use debt financing. Managers, to maintain credibility, will over-invest if it has extra cash and under-invest if it has limited cash. Stulz (1990) argued that to reduce the cost of underinvestment and overinvestment, the amount of free cash flow should be reduced to