Marriot

After evaluating the Super Project for General Foods, the two main things that management needed to address were the relevant incremental and non-incremental cash flows discussed below and incorporate the NPV and the net cash flows (yearly) to make a decision on whether to accept or reject the project. The start-up costs were determined by splitting up the costs of $160,000 in 1967 and $40,000 in 1968. To calculate the yearly cash flows, I used year 1 through 10, and the gross profit was calculated by subtracting out relative cash flows and the before tax depreciation. The NPV of $169,530 is positive for the 10% discount rate, which is less than the IRR of 11.4%.

2. Net Present Value – Secondly, Peter needs to investigate the Net Present Value (NPV) of each project scenario, i.e. job type, gross margin, and # new diamonds drills purchased. The NPV will measure the variance of the present value of cash outflow (drilling equipment investment) versus the future value of cash inflows (future profits), at the benchmark hurdle rate of 20%. A positive NPV associated with the investment means that the investment should be undertaken as it exceeds the minimum rate of return. A higher NPV determines which project scenario will have the highest return on cash flow, hence determining the most profitable investment in terms of present money value.

Restaurant  Risk-free rate of 8.72%; short-term rate used due to the short term usefulness of assets

Moreover, Robert Gates’ estimation of the price increase (2.0%) differs from the information provided in the case (1.7%). This overestimates revenue and thereby FCF. To make better projections for the firms’ FCF, Robert Gates would also have to consider the opportunity cost of alternative investments, the risk exposure throughout the project and operational risks after three years.

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

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.

The nominal risk-free rate, which includes an inflation premium equal to the average expected inflation rate over the life of the security. The T-bill rate to measure the short-term risk-free rate The T-bonds rate to measure the long-term risk-free rate. In this case,we should choose T-bonds rate. Because the T-bill is safe because it is issued by the governments, and it has a short period to maturity. That is good investment returns are usually stated as annual returns, and the T-bill rate is a one-year risk free rate.

This business has strong position in some segments; the demand for oil and gas would be increased by next years, annual prices for oil and gas will also increase. The consultant felt that demand and supply picture is increasing and would be favorable for those firms that had developed the business earlier. However, according to the consultant, it would not be favorable to invest more in exploration and production, so Mensa should expand this business through intensification strategy. As the production would peak from 2002 to 2010, they advised that their existing reserves and the land they own would only increase in value over time, even though Mensa could never grow to be competitive within this industry due to the size of their existing competitors. The Florida pipeline in this sector is a significant tool for improvement in profits, as the cash flow for this business was estimated to increase $100million to $300million in year 5. For exploration and production division, if divestment strategy is followed then the division could be sold for $1,560,000,000 at present and it will be increased up to $2,000,000,000 within 5 to 6 years. The profits would be increased by 8-10%, with a focus on building supplies of both oil and gas.

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.

For the risk-free rate (rRF) we used the yield for a 20-year treasury bond in 2002:

I take the “Long –Term U.S. Government Bond Returns from 1926-1987” as appropriate risk free rate from Exhibit 4. The risk-free rate represents the interest an investor would expect from an absolutely risk-free investment over a specified period of time. “Long –Term U.S. Government Bond Returns from 1926-1987” are include the whole lifetime of Marriot and are more or less risk free.

Karen Daniels , president of Borders Hotel Corporation (BHC) , has to investigate three financing alternatives in order to evaluate their impacts on viability of the BHC

The risk-free rate recommended under the CAPM model is the yield on long-term (i.e. 10+ years) T-bills.  When choosing the T-bill term, it is important for it to closely represent the time frame used for Heinz’ required rate of return.

In the case of Worldwide Paper Company we performed calculations to decide whether they should accept a new project or not. We calculated their net income and their cash flows for this project (See Table 1.6 and 1.5). We computed WPC’s weighted average cost of capital as 9.87%. We then used the cash flows to calculate the company’s NPV. We first calculated the NPV by using the 15% discount rate; by using that number we calculated a negative NPV of $2,162,760. We determined that the discount rate of 15% was out dated and insufficient. To calculate a more accurate NPV for the project, we decided to use the rate of 9.87% that we computed. Using this number we got the NPV of $577,069. With the NPV of $577,069 our conclusion is to accept this

The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is 60.38% which is much higher than the cost of capital of 14.5%., and the higher a project's internal rate of return, the more desirable it is to undertake the project. The profitability index would be 4.95 which is much greater than 1, and whenever the profitability index reaches a number above 1 the project should be accepted. Even if the company is interested in selling the Bernoulli division it would still increase the value of the division if they were to make the investment now and sell it later on. As we had mentioned above the opportunity cost of capital is only 14.5%, but the aforementioned benefits from the investment are much higher. Even thought the management is a bit weary of this investment, if the sales projections are correct then the additional investment will definitely turn around this division.