Dupont Case Notes

The company’s leverage ratio is 28% - 72% of its assets are financed by common equity and the company was profitable in the last reporting period. The company should easily raise additional funds from creditors and a convertible debenture will be an appealing venture for creditors who would want to purchase stocks of the company in the future.

Having a conservative debt policy increased the credit worthiness of the firm. Because the firm believes that the interest coverage ratio is a critical factor for credit rating agencies, they attempted to keep this ratio very high. Also, by having a higher credit rating they are able to access short term commercial paper borrowings at better rates. This type of short term borrowing makes up 47% of Diageo’s portfolio. By not having a strong credit rating they would not be able to lock in the low rates which would impact their business significantly.

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In addition, as we are comparing the profit margin and operating profit margin, we notice that interest expense, from 2006 to 2010, consumed a relative small portion of sales proceeds comparing to 2011. In 2011, the profit margin for HH is -1.46% and the operating profit margin for HH is -0.74%. Since profit margin includes interest expense in the calculation while operating profit margin does not, we can conclude that HH has about the same amount in interest expense as the amount of operating loss before interest. This finally doubles the amount of company’s loss at the end of the cycle. This big amount of interest expense leads us to study HH’s leverage ratios.

DuPont a well-known and once very well respected chemical company, is now known for their irresponsible business tactics and the way they dealt with the chemicals onsite, and the pollution it caused in our air and our drinking water. DuPont purchased a large piece of land about sixty acres in New York, West Virginia, known as a small town and consisted of a lot of farming and irrigation, cattle, and production of crops. The DuPont case started when a local farmer in the community exploited the footage of the stream nearby being polluted with chemicals from the DuPont plant. The local towns people, were fed up with the situation in their town and the injurious ways it was affecting their cattle, so they set up a meeting with a corporate defense

Becton Dickinson (BD) is a large family-owned corporation with headquarters in New Jersey that emphasizes healthcare and diagnostic devices. Founding in 1897, BD has established its reputation based on a paternalistic human resource philosophy, e.g. never fires anyone, and rewards loyalty. Things had changed when Roger Kern was appointed as the vice president of human resources in 1981. He created a first-class traditional HR function at BD that focused on education, compensation, benefit and other key HR functions. In the late 1980s, despite these substantial changes, problems began to surface. More and more employees complained most HR programs and functions were “less

The statement of cash flows outlines some of the changes to the capital structure. The company added $164.5 million in a consolidated loan facility, and it paid out $138.1 million in dividends. There were no share buybacks during the year. The company states in the annual report (p.4) that it intends to maintain a conservative gearing ratio. The company in this section attributes its increased borrowings to projects and opportunities on which it has embarked. These investments lie within the integrated retail, franchise and property system. One of the

Managing debt levels to maintain an investment grade credit rating as well as operate with an efficient capital structure for its growth plans and industry

Torres’ common-size financial statements also show the changing composition of Costco’s financing structure over time. The fact that interest expense consistently fell over the five year span from -0.35% of net sales in 1997 to -0.09% in 2001 demonstrates Costco’s ability to reduce its overall amount of debt during these years. Exhibit nine’s balance sheet portion supports this reduction, documenting an increase in total current liabilities from 35.86% of total assets in 1997 to 40.76% in 2001 and an increase in accounts payable from 25.46% of assets in 1997 to 27.03% in 2001. This signifies that the company’s debts or obligations due within one year increased, further corresponding with the fact that short-term borrowing increased from 0.46% of assets in 1997 to 1.93% in 2001. With an increase in short-term borrowing it is logical to expect to see a decrease in long-term borrowing. The income statement proves that this is indeed the case, documenting a decrease in long-term debt from 16.74% of sales in 1997 to 8.52% in 2001. This relates back to the decrease in Costco’s interest expense on the income statement, representing the company’s decision to switch to short-term and away from long-term methods. Furthermore, the decrease in long-term debt helped account for a decrease in total liabilities from

Target Corporation is having a very stable financial policy and dividend policy. From the historical financial data, Target had debt $11,044M, $11,202M, $10,599M, $17,471M, and $19,882M in the year of 2005,2006,2007,2008, and 2009 respectively. The long-term debt/equity ratio rises from 69.34% to 108%.

Du Pont's financial policy had always been based on maximization of financial flexibility. Taking to consideration the riskiness of Du Pont's businesses, its competitive position and profitability had declined in the last 20 years. Moreover, the firm is still forced to seek external financing each year for the next five years (1983-1987) due to the continued high level of capital expenditures which are considered non-deferrable to redress the causes of poor performance. In view of the importance and magnitude of the projected financing needs, the firm is concerned about how the cost and availability of debt

The company lost money almost every year since its leveraged buyout by Coniston Partners in 1989. The income generated was not sufficient to service the interest expenses of the company which stood at $2.62B in 1996. From Exhibit 1, we can say that interest coverage ratio computed as EBIT / Interest Expense was 1.31 in 1989 and has been decreasing over years and currently stands at 0.59. This raises a question of how the company can meet its interest payments without raising cash or selling assets.

In January 1980, the management of the Marriott Corporation found itself in an interesting dilemma: not only did the corporation have considerable excess debt capacity, but projections of future operations and cash flows indicated that this capacity was on the rise. For Marriott, excess debt capacity was viewed as comparable to unused plant capacity because the existing equity base could support additional productive assets. Management was therefore faced with two problems. First, it needed to determine the amount of funds that would be available if Marriott's full debt capacity were utilized. Second, management needed to decide whether to invest excess funds in new or existing businesses, or to return them to the companies shareholders

We assume linear increase in the EBIT and EBITDA at 3% for 1999 from 1998 figures. Considering the debt will be long-term, we test both 10- and 20-year corporate yields as interest rates to see what would be the coverage ratios, using the 1999 projected figures.

As Star River is a private company and has not issued stock, we need to make several assumptions when calculating market value of equity and price of equity. Analysis of similar companies reveals that Wintronics, Inc. and STOR-Max Corp. are the most similar firms in the market. To calculate Star River’s market value of equity I used market to book value method. I found M/B for Wintronics to be 4.4 (market price per share/book value per share) and 3.9 for STOR-Max. an average M/B ratio is 4.15, so multiplying Star River’s book value of equity of 47004 by 4.15 I found Star River’s market value of equity to be SGD195,066.6M. Average beta of these two companies is 1.615. The global equity market premium is 6%, and I use 10 year Singapore T-bond yield of 3.6% as my risk free rate.