Boston Beer HBS Case

The cost of equity was found using CAPM, with the given market risk premium of 5%, a beta of .88, and risk-free rate of 4.03%. The beta was found by running a regression of Southwest’s percent change in stock price versus the S&P 500’s percent change in stock price for two years (June 28, 2000 to June 28, 2002). The risk-free rate was the return on a ten-year treasury note issued on June 28, 2002, according to the U.S. Treasury’s website. The tax rate of 39% was used to account for tax savings from leverage. In order to calculate the firm’s leverage, the market value of equity was found from the price per share on July 24, 2002 (Yahoo Finance) and the shares outstanding on the balance sheet of the July 10-Q report, as shown in Exhibit X. The debt value was approximated at the book value since data could not be found regarding its market value. This analysis resulted in a debt weight of 11.74% and equity weight of 88.26%. The final approximation for the weighted average cost of capital was 8.64%.

The next project was bottling Gordon Biersch signature beer and retailing it. This had three biggest challenges: this project was entirely Gordon’s baby and demanded time and attention; secondly the freshness of the bottled beer versus the freshly brewed was an issue for which they decided the beer would have a shelf life no longer than three months. Thirdly and the most exciting challenge was the head-to-head competition with other microbreweries and premium beers. Despite the tough competitive environment, Gordon Biersch aimed to achieve 11% of the market in three years (by 1996). This retail venture required huge investment, thus they decided to start small to prove to the investors that they could pull it off.

This represents a 7% increase in stock price. Further, the additional leverage and return of excess cash to shareholders will significantly increase ROE. If the market determines that an 80% debt capital structure is feasible for BBBY, then we will expect further capital gains as investors applaud shareholder friendly policies and re-examine EPS estimates. However, if top line growth and same store sales growth continue to trend downward, investors may become skeptical of BBBY management’s ability to continue generating over 30% EPS growth, and thus question the ability of the company to service its debt in the future.

Cost of Equity = Risk free rate + (Market return – risk free rate) X beta

The Boston Beer Company, Inc., founded in 1984, is a leading brewer in United States, offering wide variety of high quality full-flavored, handcraftedbeers. It is distinctive due to the time-honored recipe of brewing and authentic, consistent quality of alcoholic beverages. Samuel Adams Boston Lager is the pride of BBC, regular handcrafted beer “stands for quality, inner self-worth, authenticity, and unique New England or Yankee toughness” ( Martin Roper, Chief Operating Officer). Unfortunately, the company experienced the failure of conquering light beer segment

The Boston Beer Company and Samuel Adams have both had a long history. Since the 1870s, six generations of the Koch family have been involved with beer. In the early 1980s, the seventh generations almost turned his back on the family business. After graduating from graduate school, Jim Koch wanted to stray always for the family business and seek a career in management consulting. After a short time in the consulting business, Koch decided that he just could not ignore his destiny to create a new, different beer. In 1984, Koch was on the search for a “better beer”. The only options at the time on the market were pale lagers from mass producers (Company), Koch decided there needed to be a change. In April 1985, Samuel Adams made in bar

The forecast comes to 1.13 which is higher than the usual percentage of the business. 1.13 means the firm has a debt of 113% which is extremely high. That is a sign that the company is going into debt to stay in operation, but this is not okay for their shareholders. The only way to ensure the company remains in business without these massive debts is by lowering all cost of services and maximizing profits, therefore, turning around the firm to profitability.

Please refer to Appendix 2 for other considerations for cost of equity calculations. Most firms use the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to determine the cost of equity. The components that make up the CAPM include: the risk free rate, the beta of the security, and the expected market return of the stock. These values are all based on forward-looking data. The model dictates that shareholders require a return equal to the return from a risk-free investment plus an equity risk premium for bearing extra risk. Refer to Appendix 1 for a full breakdown of the CAPM formula.

The Boston Beer Company filed its initial public offering prospectus with the SEC because they were looking to raise between $26 and $34 million for

Using the same market risk premium and risk free rate (5.5% & 4.62% respectively) given in the case, the averaged beta of 1.40, the pretax cost of debt of 7.65%, and the weighted average of debt & equity, the products & systems

     In this paper I will be talking about the U.S. beer industry and in short an overview of the brewing industry worldwide. I will talk about the barriers to entry, economies of scale, government intervention, pricing, current market trends, product differentiation, and imports. The focus being mainly on the U.S. brewing industry oligopoly. The U.S. brewing industry has three major players: Anheuser-Busch, SAB Miller, and Coors/Molson. Anheuser-Busch is currently the largest brewer in the world, producing over 100 million barrels a year. Anheuser-Busch currently owns over 50% of the market in the United States, with Miller trailing behind at 20% and Coors at about 11% with the rest of the market occupied by imports and craft breweries. When analyzing any industry, how easy it is for newcomers to enter the market is a great importance. If there are high barriers to entry

Craft Brewing Goes Public In August 1995, Paul Shipman, the CEO of Alridge Brewing (AB) prepared himself to enter uncharted territory. A craft brewing operation had never before been taken public in the United States, and he and his management team were about to do just that. Sure, there were massive large-batch breweries like Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Company that were profitable, publicly traded firms—but there was something different about Alridge: it embodied the ethos and grassroots beginnings of the microbrew movement, and Shipman was confident that widespread market demand for craft beer was set to explode. He and the team had steadily developed their premium-quality handmade ales for nearly

* We assume the cost of capital to be a stated annual rate to facilitate calculations;

When selecting Capitalization Rates you should consider the risk characteristics of an investment opportunity or security. In the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the higher the risk involved in investing asset, the higher the minimum expected rate of return to attract investors to invest. Capitalization rate of financial asset is the function of riskiness of asset.

Capital asset pricing model was developed by Sharpe (1964) and furthered through the works of Lintner (1965), Mossin (1966), Treynor (1965) and Black (1972). This model calculates expected/required rate of return for any risky financial asset. Capital Asset Pricing Model formula is shown in figure 1.1. Essentially, this represents investors need to be compensated for their time value of money and risk. Beta is measure of volatility and will be further examined in later stages of this essay. For example, if our particular company has a high standard deviation of the rate of return, an investment in the company might appear