Mci Coorporation

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.

After carefully reviewing the income statement, balances sheet and cash flow it seems that the company has a negative cash flow for 1998, so even before thinking about obtaining internal and external resources for long term investment, the company must assure resources for their own working capital.

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

Further, keeping in view the strong competitive environment and fear of “Clones” by others, Intel is constantly required to look for innovative products, which would need more funds for upfront expenditures. In these situations, large cash positions would help Intel to avoid taking loans from outside, and in turn interest costs, by using its own cash balances. A disadvantage of having large cash position would be that cash has an opportunity cost. In other words, Intel could be forgoing profitable investment opportunities. However looking at the data provided in the case, we can see that the cost of holding cash was small as they yield high returns, above 170 bases points above U.S treasury bills, through investing in securities rated above AA. Further, a cash rich company runs the risk of being careless as there may be reduced pressure on the management team to perform better. Observing Intel’s growing performance over a period of time, it seems that currently it has no such problem. However in future, it may become a cause of concern for the company.

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

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

Financing requirements of the company can be determined by calculating the cash requirements of the company by adding the working capital needs and capital expenditure needs of the company. Working capital needs can be calculated by subtracting current liabilities from current assets of the company. Current assets of the company will remain significantly lower than current liabilities for next three years. Working capital needs of the company come out to be $17.523 million, $21,028 million and $21,028 million for years 2010, 2011 and 2012. Capital expenditures of the company will remain at $0.9 million for all three years. Adding the values of working capital needs and capital expenditure needs for all years and by subtracting these values from net income, we can calculate the external financing required by the company to meet the cash needs for next three years. As shown in calculations in excel sheet, external financing requirements for the company come out to be $15.231 million for 2010 and $18.091 million for 2011 and 2012 respectively.

In Scenario A, the Debt would remain at 0 for good. This results in a D/V ratio of 0 which gives us a WACC of 9.21. Using the WACC to derive the Enterprise value of the company, it is found to be $3.043B. Subtracting the debt of $1.25B, we have a Value of Equity of $1.79B. Subtracting the $765M that is

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 case they finance with debt, Winfield (the company) would be able to enjoy the tax shield as a result of tax deductible interest expense, hence their effective cost of debt will be 4.225%. However, when financed with stock, the new stockholders will be entitled to perpetuity of $7.5M in dividends. Working out the net present values of the two scenarios as shown in the tables above, Debt financing becomes a favorable option to stock since it yields a higher NPV.

Operating cash flow was not enough to cover capital investments (this firm does not to appear to pay dividends as it does not show in the prior 3 years). The firm is financing it operations from the issuance of common stock. $23,082 was raised during the period, which is covering its investments in capital expenditures.

The main source of cash is A/R. In 1991 the company also gathered $23M issuing stock.

MCI would be better to keep its capital structure of 55% debt. The cost of equity is high because raising more equity will dilute the value for existing shareholders. Due to the fact that MCI has a high leverage, it is not feasible to issue debt. Additionally, MCI has exhausted the line of credit from the banks and used convertible debentures frequently. MCI belongs to a competitive and regulatory industry. The high leverage will limit its potential to grow. In exhibit 8, MCI does not have a bond rating. The convertible bond allowed the company to raise capital and convert to equity later. The interest coverage ratio of AT&T is 3.6X whereas that of MCI is 4.2X. After increasing the market share, the company can obtain a bond rating by decreasing its financial leverage.

We would recommend the capital structure with 30% debt. This is because with 30% debt, they would be able to repurchase 19.8 million shares outstanding as well as save 37.8 million in taxes. EBIT is high in this company, and because of this, financial leverage will raise EPS and ROE. However, variability also increases as financial leverage increases, so the company would not want to take on too much debt and become very risky.