Red Hen Case Study

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.

This step involves short and long term debt equity analysis. The proportion of equity capital depends on the possessing and additional funds will be raised. The choice of the source of funds the company has are the issue of shares and debentures, loans to be taken from banks and financial institutions and public deposits to be drawn in form of bonds. The choice will depend on relative merits and demerits of each source and period of financing. The management of the investment funds is key in allocating that the funds are going in the correct place. The profits that are made can be down in two ways dividend declaration which includes identifying the rate of dividends and retained profits in which the volume has to be decided which will depend upon expansion and diversification of the company. The management of cash is another important function. Cash is needed for all different aspects of the company such as payment of salaries, overhead and bills. All of these are important in a company and how successful the financial aspect is going to be.The financial management practices include capital structure decision, investment appraisal techniques, dividend policy, working capital management and financial performance assessment. A company needs to have well financial in order to be successful. “A company that sells well but has poor financial management can fail.” (Johnston)

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

9. What is the Cost of Debt, before and after taxes? Using the interest rate for the largest debt…cannot use the weighted interest rate for the debt since it includes capital lease obligations with no stated rate and could not find in the notes to the financials. 5.4% After tax cost is .054 x (1-.36) = 3.5%

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。

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.

Expansion of the business can be another factor of an increase in costs. This will increase the income as the business can now have more departments or more space to place more products. This will increase their selling and income. An increase or decrease in labour and material costs will increase total cost hugely. Getting supplied with more material or employing more people will increase the costs, this will then mean that the company will have to produce and sell more products which will increase the income.

The mixture of debt-equity mix is important so as to maximize the stock price of the Costco. However, it will be significant to consider the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) as well so that it can evaluate the company targeted capital structure. Cost of capital (OC) may be used by the companies as for long term decision making, so industries that faced to take the important of Cost of capital seriously may not make the right choice by choosing the right project(Gitman’s, ).

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.

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

The senior management of Company A employ you to advise them on the cost of capital the company should use to calculate net present value and decide whether or not to undertake a new investment project. You may assume that the new project is comparable to the average of the company’s existing projects in all respects.

The company’s debt ratios are 54.5% in 1988, 58.69% in 1989, 62.7% in 1990, and 67.37% in 1991. What this means is that the company is increasing its financial risk by taking on more leverage. The company has been taking an extensive amount of purchasing over the past couple of years, which could be the reason as to why net income has not grown much beyond several thousands of dollars. One could argue that the company is trying to expand its inventory to help accumulate future sales. But another problem is that the company’s

“Red Rooster is a leading Australian-owned quick service restaurant, committed to providing innovative products that are consumer and lifestyle focused. We aim to exceed our customer expectations on quality, value, service and hygiene.” (Jason B, 2011)

WPC has used a discount rate of 15% to evaluate potential projects for the last 10 years. Many in management are correct in thinking that this rate should be evaluated on a much more frequent basis. The current rate of 15% is much too high considering the yield on treasury bonds has declined from 10% to 5% over the last ten years. In order to calculate the correct discount rate we must first determine what their equity and debt ratios are. As you can see in Exhibit1, in order to find the total value of equity we must multiply the number of total outstanding shares of stock times the market value of each share. Completing this calculation shows us that WPC has $12 billion in outstanding equity. WPC also has $2.5 billion in outstanding debt. If you add the debt and equity together we see that WPC has a total of $14.2 billion in outstanding financing. Assuming the 10 year rate of Government Bonds of 4.60% as our risk free rate and using the Capital Asset Pricing Model we find that that WPC’s return on equity is 11.2% (See Exhibit 1). As stated in the case, Worldwide Paper Company has an A bond rating so we can use the 5.78% for their return on debt. Combining all of these variables in the Weighted Average Cost of