Mci Case Report

The company position is strong enough so its better that company should use debt financing instead of equity financing.

As shown in the ratios chart, working capital has increased by $13M. Maturities of short-term investments and cash flow from operations are projected to be sufficient to sustain the company’s overall financing needs, including capital expenditures. The following corporate strategic plan identifies a project that needs financial backing.

Aside from the two aforementioned proposals the company can raise its leverage in other ways. By conducting DuPont analysis and understanding operating leverage we see that purchasing fixed assets and decreasing stockholder’s equity will raise the equity multiplier and the firm’s operating leverage. In this instance we recommend against this approach as the firm already has a large amount of excess cash above what they require to fund new positive NPV projects and purchase new assets. Investors would rather see their capital returned to them in the form of share repurchases and dividends as it is evident by the company’s cash stockpile that they can

An analysis of a repurchase of stock for $400 million cash, and recapitalization to 80% debt-to-total capital by borrowing $1.27 million reveals that BBBYs return on equity will be 113%, return on assets 61% and an after tax cost of debt of 28%. ROE is > ROA and ROA > after tax cost of debt. With the 80% debt-to-total capital structure ROE exceeds the other two capital structure scenarios of no debt and 40% debt-to-total capital. While all of this looks great there are other considerations. The household and personal products industries debt to total asset ratio is 34.69% while BBBY debt to total asset ratio is at 44% ($1,270,000/$2,865,023). Increasing to this capital structure would also reduce shareholders earnings per share.

Our company will plan to finance our strategy principally through issuing stock and cash flows from operating activities generated from the company’s normal business functions. It is undesirable for our strategy to issue debt because we would like to stay away from interest payments. Our company anticipates our debt to equity leverage ratio to be around 0.5.

With different level of the debt of the company according to Exhibit 3, we would predict by comparing to its peer Warner. Lambert Company at 32.4% debt to total capital ratio still maintain at weak AAA level. AHP had much better financial performance e.g. Earnings per Share and Return on Equity. With 50% Debt to Total Equity ratio, AHP may receive lower rating at AA level and we do not expect them to go lower than BBB rating even with 70% Debt to Total Equity

2. Forecast the firm’s financial statements for 2002 and 2003. What will be the external financing requirements of the firm in those years? Can the firm repay its loan within a reasonable period? In order to forecast the financial statements of 2002 and 2003, the following assumptions need to be made. The growth of sales is 15%, same as 2001, which is estimated by managers. The rate of production costs and expenses per sales is constant to 50%. Administration and selling expenses is the average of last 4 years. The depreciation is $7.8 million per year, which is calculated by $54.6 million divided by 7 years. Tax rate is 24.5%, which is provided. The dividend is $2 million per year only when the company makes profits. Therefore, we assume that there will be no dividend in 2003. Gross PPE will be $27.3 million (54.6/2) per year. We also assume there is no more long term debt, because any funds need in the case are short term debt, it keeps at $18.2 million. According to the forecast, Star River needs external financing approximately $94 million and $107 million in 2002 and 2003, respectively. In order to analysis if the company can repay the debt, we need to know the interest coverage ratio, current ratio and D/E ratio. The interest coverage ratios through the forecast were 1.23 and 0.87 respectively, which is the danger signal to the managers, because in 2003, the profits even not

There is the possibility that Timken can lose its BBB investment-grade rating. This is due to Timken taking on the $800 million in debt it needs to purchase Torrington. The change in the company’s debt composition will change ratios such as debt-to-capital which is used to determine the investment-grade rating. Compared to other industrial firms, Timken shows relatively high sales numbers ($279.4 million) as well EBITDA figures ($275.7 million). According to table 3 (p. 4), only three ratios will change as taking on the $800 million in debt. The first one is EBIT Interest Coverage Ratio, which drops from 2.63 to 0.90 and investment-rating scale falls from BBB to B. The second ratio is EBITDA Interest Coverage Ratio, which drops from 4.3 to 3.14 and investment-rating scale falls from BBB to B. The third one is Total Debt/Capital Ratio, which increases from 43 percent to 67 percent and drives the rating from BB to B. In conclusion, the $800 million debt has a negative impact on Timken, since it lowers company’s investment-rating scale.

As shown in the financial income statement (Exhibit3), Intel Corp. (INTC) has a capital structure consisting most of equity. Intel has very little debt in its capital structure and the cost of debt would have only a marginal effect on the overall cost of capital. The current capital structure of Intel is not optimal yet since optimal capital structure is making minimum weighted-average cost of capital.

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

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

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.

To determine Microline’s solvency, the ability to meet its long-term debt, I will calculate several different ratios that will give me a better picture of the company’s health. The first ratio I will calculate is the Interest Coverage Ratio which is the Operating income / Interest expense. This will calculate Microline’s ability to cover its interest payments with its operating income. Microline’s income statement doesn’t give a EBIT figure, so I will first calculate that by adding the interest expense back to the net income before taxes to get operating income. The amount is $5,750 and I will now divide that number by the $1,000 interest expense to get 5.75. This number means that Microline can cover its interest payments

Considering UST only had short-term debt issues prior to the recapitalization, and that credit ratings depend on maturity of debt issued, we cannot simply rely on the commercial paper ratings to extrapolate. We assume that rating will be A based on competitors’ ratings as well as UST’s overall financial standing. We then use this assumption to calculate the value of the company using the two methods above.