How Low Can It Go?

The dividend policy has grown over the years. This may be so that the company projects itself as a less risky share and thus also gaining investors faith. The investors buy its shares and thus increase its demand. This helps to gives positive signals to the investors signalling that the company is stable and can generate earnings steadily. This hypothesis is gains standing from the dividend hypothesis theory.

California Surf Clothing Company issues 1,300 shares of $7 par value common stock at $22 per share. Later in the year, the company decides to repurchase 130 shares at a cost of $35 per share.

George C. Philippatos and William W. Sihler, 'Models of Dividend Policy', Financial Management (Allyn and Bacon), 228-229

We obtain the growth rate g in the dividend growth model by calculating the geometric average for the last 10 years based on Common DIV/SH.

2. Considering Mary’s need of assurance, it is possible that Mary would prefer other forms, like bond or preferred share, which have more assurance to repay her investment.

A. The dividends-earnings ratio is a key factor that serious investors use to evaluate stock investments.

The single most important problem faced by the company is: the classification of preferred stock.

Securities are confirmation of either debt or ownership. They are also confirmation of related rights. Securities include not only options and warrants, but also debt and stock. (FASB ASC 505-10-50-6) Participation rights are the promised rights of the security holders. This ensures that they will receive dividends or returns from the issuing company’s profits, cash flows, or returns on investments. (FASB ASC 505-10-50-3) Preferred stock are a security that gives preference to the holder over those who hold common stock. (FASB ASC

The redemption available after the third anniversary of the original issue date is weighted towards equity. This option guarantees that the investors will receive at least the principal back. The mandatory redemption behaves like debt because there is a definite maturity date. The protective covenants are also weighted toward debt because the risk is limited and gives priority to the Series B Preferred Stockholders. Dividends are usually associated with equity; however, in this case the dividends are behaving more like debt interest payments. The dividends are paid at a fixed 8%

By following the the Thornton’s series of tests and the codification, Team 6 recommends Alternative A(1), classify the preferred shares in the equity section of the balance sheet.

Dividend policy theory is closely tied to the work of Miller and Modigliani (1961, hereafter M&M) and their dividend policy irrelevance thesis. M&M demonstrate that under certain assumptions including rational investors and a perfect capital market, the market value of a firm is independent of its dividend policy. In actual market practices however, it has been found that dividend policy does seem to matter, and relaxing one or more of M&M’s perfect capital market assumptions has often formed the basis for the emergence of rival theories of dividend policy. Because of uncertainty of future cash flow, investors will often tend to prefer dividends to retained earnings. As a result, a higher payout ratio will reduce the required rate of return and hence increase the value of the firm (Gordon, 1959).

It provides an evaluation of the bond issuer’s financial strength and ability to pay back the bond’s principle and interest. The bond rating also provides investors with some sense of security when investing in a particular firm. A higher bond rating implies a lower likelihood for the firm to default. Investors would feel more secured investing in such a bond, thus demanding a relatively lower rate of return. As such, high rated bonds enable the issuer to enjoy a lower cost of borrowing. A lower bond rating, on the other hand, serves as a negative signal to investors on the firm’s ability to repay debt obligations.

In general the three-stage approach allows us to add complexity to the standard dividend discount models by enabling changing growth scenarios throughout the forecasting period: an initial period of higher than normal growth, a transition/consolidation period of declining growth and final a period of stable growth. The main assumptions are that the company on which we conduct the calculation study currently is in extraordinary strong growth phase. The time period with the extraordinary strong growth must be strictly defined and eventually be replaced with the declining growth assumption. Lastly, Capital Expenditures and Depreciation are expected to grow at the same rate as revenues. .

iii. Disadvantages First, without enough consideration of risk cost, DDM may underestimate the equity cost. Second, all of the data is based on historical record, so the result is not reliable considering of the future situations. Third, with the predetermined growth rate, it is obviously practical for the stock investors to estimate the possible profit, but may mislead the stock issuing firm from a better budgeting decision to a comparatively unsubstantial investment.

If external financing is required, the “safest” securities, namely debt, are issued first. Although investors fear mispricing of both debt and equity, the fear is much greater for equity. Corporate debt still relatively little risk compared to equity because, if financial distress is avoided, investors receive a fixed return.. Thus, the pecking order theory implies that, if outside financing required, debt should be issued before equity. Only when the firm’s debt capacity is reached should the firm consider equity.