Midland Energy Resources Case

1. For what purposes does Mortensen estimate Midland's cost of capital? What would be the potential consequences of a too high estimate compared to the firm's “true” cost of capital? What about a too low estimate?

Helen also goes on to explain that if one segment’s hurdle rate is lower than the corporate hurdle rate, the company would be destroying shareholder value. The whole is a sum of its parts. What if Teletech has the opportunity to invest in a project that creates value at a hurdle rate below the firm wide 10.41%, but above the segment’s hurdle rate? This investment would create value in this segment, but in the strategy of one hurdle rate, the project would be overlooked.

1. How are Mortensen’s estimates of Midland’s cost of capital used? How, if at all, should these anticipated uses affect the calculations?

How does Marriott use its estimate of its cost of capital? Does this make sense?

Barb Williams and Rick Thomas, while attending an executive education course at a well-known business school, came across a case which involved calculating the cost of capital for Telus Corporation (Telus). Basic data such as the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Data on Telus’ Common Stock, Market Index, and the Average Annual Returns in North American Capital Markets were provided. In order to calculate Telus’ cost of capital we need to calculate the company’s Cost of Equity, Cost of Debt, and Tax Rate along with their weighted cost and then apply these to the Weighted

Our estimated cost of capital, 20.81%, is lower than Ricketts’ expected return, 30%-50%, thus the investment is worthy. However, it’s higher than other pessimistic members’ expected return, 10%-15%, making the decision more complex and requiring further valuation。

The cost of equity was found using CAPM, with the given market risk premium of 5%, a beta of .88, and risk-free rate of 4.03%. The beta was found by running a regression of Southwest’s percent change in stock price versus the S&P 500’s percent change in stock price for two years (June 28, 2000 to June 28, 2002). The risk-free rate was the return on a ten-year treasury note issued on June 28, 2002, according to the U.S. Treasury’s website. The tax rate of 39% was used to account for tax savings from leverage. In order to calculate the firm’s leverage, the market value of equity was found from the price per share on July 24, 2002 (Yahoo Finance) and the shares outstanding on the balance sheet of the July 10-Q report, as shown in Exhibit X. The debt value was approximated at the book value since data could not be found regarding its market value. This analysis resulted in a debt weight of 11.74% and equity weight of 88.26%. The final approximation for the weighted average cost of capital was 8.64%.

Two managers attending an executive education course attempt to develop a cost of capital estimate for a leading telecommunications company, Telus The two managers are somewhat confused about the costs of various sources of capital, the calculation of the overall cost of capital and the appropriate use of the hurdle rate

2. How does Marriott use its estimate of its cost of capital? Does this make sense?

At first, WACC and CAPM was attempted to be used as a source of cost of capital. However, for WACC, there is no available proportion of debt and cost of debt for MW. For CAPM, no available data seems to support the acceptable

Based upon the firm’s low target leverage of 5%, low degree of operating leverage, and favorable credit history and financial outlook, the model assumes a cost of debt in line with AAA corporate debt at 7.02%. This estimate seems reasonable and sensitivity analysis shows a 1% decrease in the forecasted share price requires at least a 2.4% increase in the cost of debt.

Midland Energy Resources is a global energy company with operations in oil and gas exploration and production(E&P) providing a broad array of products and services to upstream oil and gas customers worldwide including refining and marketing (R&M), natural gas, and petrochemicals. Janet Mortensen, the senior vice president of project finance for Midland Energy Resources must determine the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for the company as a whole and each of its divisions

1. Why is Lex Service PLC concerned about its cost of capital in 1993? What role will an estimate of the cost of capital play within Lex? In general, how can and do companies make use of cost of capital estimates?

4. AQR’s strategy was required by regulators to be sufficiently diversified among assets, industries as well as companies. And to compare the profitability of both strategies, we estimated the expected returns and risks measured by different ratios, shown as below.

All of these calculated figures can then be used to calculate the WACC which is (17% x 3.47%) + (83% x 11.2%) = 9.87% WACC. This WACC percentage can then be used to value the investment and as a comparative in valuation methods. The full calculation and numerical values are shown in Appendix 1.