The Determinate And Impact Of Optimal Leverage Ratio

Higher leverage is very likely to create value for a firm considering capital structure change by exerting financial discipline and more efficient corporate strategy changes.

Financial leverage is the ability of the company to maneuver with financing options to meet the obligations (Investopedia, 2012). There are two leverage ratios that were analyzed for this financial statement 1) debt ratio and 2) debt-to-equity ratio.

Secondary information is collected for this case. This case study limited only one techniques of financial analysis that is Ratio Analysis and also taken a single company. Thus the conclusion of the analysis carried out in a professional manner will be able to correctly describe the evaluation of the company and to substantiate the user’s decisions.

A correct response requires that you find an appropriate industry beta and measure for levered/unlevered betas and requires that you define cost of equity capital and free cash flow (FCF) – you may need a formula for FCF.

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, ).

The paper illustrates that financial ratio analysis is an important tool for firm’s to evaluate their financial health in order to identify areas of weakness so as to institute corrective measures.

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

Higher leverage is very likely to create value for a firm considering capital structure change by exerting financial discipline and more efficient corporate strategy changes.

The effect of financial leverage on the cost of equity is prevalent in the Modigliani-Miller capital structure theory. Since the financial leverage increases the cost of equity, it can be considered one of the disadvantages of borrowing. As shown in Appendix A, the cost of equity, at each debt to capital ratio, increases by 0.1% as the financial leverage increases by 10%. With a higher

Before beginning an analysis of a company it is necessary to have a complete set of financial statements, preferably for the pas few years so that historical trends can be obtained. Ratios are a way for anyone to get an idea of the financial performance of a company by using the information contained in the financial statements. Ratios are grouped into four basic categories, liquidity, activity, profitability, and financial leverage. This document will use a variety of these ratios to analyze the firm, Sample Company, as of December 31,2000.

According to the Equilibrium Theory, a company has reached its optimal capital structure when it minimizes the total sum of taxes paid and the cost of financial distress. Taxes paid and the costs of financial distress develop in opposite directions as the interest coverage ratio (EBIT/interest) changes. While the tax shield effect and thus the amount of taxes paid at different coverage ratios can easily be calculated using the marginal tax rate (in the case of Diageo 27%), the cost of financial distress has to be approximated using sophisticated financial models (e.g. Monte Carlo Analysis) that take into account probabilities of different direct and indirect costs of financial distress.

It seems then that companies should fully leverage the company or a least come close to doing so but there is a probability that the company enters financial distress as its leverage (D/E) increases. Financial distress can be very costly for companies, and the cost for this scenario is shown in the current market value of the levered firm's securities. Investors factor the potential for future distress into their assessment of the present value (this is where PV of distress costs is subtracted from un-levered company value and the PV of the tax-shield.) The value for the costs

There are many similar theories about the optimal leverage point. Calculation of the firm value and cost of capital can also get the same conclusion.

Already in 1958, Modigliani and Miller have pointed the discussion of capital structure towards the cost of debt and equity. According to their first proposition, in a world of no corporate taxes and with perfect markets, financial leverage has no effect on a firm’s value. In their second proposition, they state that the cost of equity equals a linear function defined by the required return on assets and the cost of debt (Modigliani and Miller, 1958).

The objective of this study is to check whether the changes in structure of capital has impact on the overall value of the firms, and specifically in leverage ratio of firms listed in Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE).