Mogen Inc

The company’s leverage ratio is 28% - 72% of its assets are financed by common equity and the company was profitable in the last reporting period. The company should easily raise additional funds from creditors and a convertible debenture will be an appealing venture for creditors who would want to purchase stocks of the company in the future.

Convertibles are appealing to investors who are looking for an investment with greater growth potential than that offered by a traditional bond. By purchasing a convertible bond, the investor can still receive

o Cost of debt in this case is 12.5% though MCI can raise $ 100 million more with this option in comparison to option (a) above. Servicing this debt would be a significant drain on the cash flow. o Please see Exhibit 3. (c) $600 million Convertible offering @ 7.625% 20 year with conversion at 54 per share o Using this option MCI can raise $ 100 million more than option (b) at 4.88% lower rate of interest. It also gives MCI an option to convert it to equity once the stock price reaches 54 (it is currently 47). Based on previous convertible offerings (As per exhibit 6 of case, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982), MCI has been converting it to equity within 18 months because of its high growth. As higher growth is projected for the next few years (Exhibit 9 of case), MCI is expected to convert this $600 million offering to equity, thereby reducing its leverage. o This option allows to finance its current activities and match capital inflows with expected investment outlays in the near future. It also allows MCI the option to eliminate the cash flow drain from servicing the debt once the stock price increases. o As per Exhibit 3 attached here, this offering will provide capital to meet the external financing needs for 1983.

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.

This figure could be excessively high, as the industry average is 14.42%. It must be noted that after two years, debt holders would be entitled to convert these convertible bonds into Intel common stock. Should it be so, this would once again bring down the long term debt ratio, and increase Intel’s shareholder’s equity.

Andrea Winfield considered issuing bonds was not a good option for financing the acquisition. She was particularly concerned about the increasing long-term debt and annual cash layout of $ 6.25 million for 15 years. We believe that her concerns are justified, because the Company had already significant amount of debt that could result in higher risks and stock price

Three interrogations were thus to answer. Should the company provide investors with classic bonds or give them the opportunity to convert them into equity? Should they structure the offer with a fixed or a floating coupon rate? And last but not least, where should they locate the operation?

We suggest that the company should take the option 3. Firstly, as mentioned in the above, the company requires $4.8 billion during 1984 and 1990 and option 3 can provide largest fund compared with option 1 and 2. Secondly, the option 3 incurs the least interest rate, 7.5%. Thirdly, even though the company needs to increase the debt ratio in the short run, they can adjust it later with the conversion option, which gives the company flexibility for capital

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.

Increased leverage would increase the risk for the shareholder. This is due to the fact that an increased amount of debt would increase the financial return that investors expect. For example, if a company has no debt and posts better than expected earnings, the equity holder would get all of this benefit. If the company had some debt and posted better than expected earnings, the bond holders would get a fixed payment as usual, and shareholders would still enjoy increased profits; the problem arises if worse than expected profits were shown by Kelly Services. If Kelly Services had no debt and posted bad earnings, then the equity bears all the risk in that situation. However, if Kelly

In 2006, Merrill Lynch became the lead book runner for a $5 billion convertible bond issue for MoGen, Inc. This was the single, largest convertible bond issuance in history and required a considerable amount of effort on the part of Merrill Lynch’s Equity Derivatives Group to convince MoGen’s management to choose Merrill Lynch over its competitors. The case is focused on Merrill Lynch’s choice of the conversion premium and coupon rate to propose to MoGen management. This pricing decision requires students understand the concept of valuing a convertible as the sum of a straight bond plus the conversion option. Valuing the conversion option as a call option requires the

WorldCom has the option to extend its bank loan credit facility or to issue this large $6 billion in debt. It plans to use the rolling commercial paper program to pay British Telecommunications for MCI’s share purchases, and then use bond proceeds to pay off the commercial paper program. This signals that WorldCom does not need the money immediately for a single corporate purpose, and does not need the money immediately. Therefore, perhaps it makes sense for WorldCom to issue the bonds in smaller installments rather than flooding the market with $6 billion in debt all at once. The first reason for this is that, if an underwriter must first purchase the bonds before selling to investors, an underwriter may demand greater spread in order to justify taking down an entire $6 billion in debt using the bank’s capital assets. The second

The advantage to choosing a convertible bond for financing is that "they provide issuers with ‘cheap' debt and allow them to sell equity at a premium over current value". Jen, Choi, Lee (1997).

Due to high investment in fixed asset the firm also need a high amount of debt in order to cover its expenses so the smooth run of business.

The long-term liquidity risk ratio such as LT debt/Equity, D/E, and Total Liabilities to Total Assets all show a decline from year 2005 due to the repayment of debts. The interest coverage ratio also shows a healthy number of 29.45 in comparison to the industrial average of 15.04 indicating a high ability to pay out its interest expense. Such a low relative risk is not surprising due to the nature of its business depending heavily in R&D development and large intangible assets.