Warren E,buffett,2005 Essay

For the purpose of calculating the net present value of the project, an appropriate cost of capital has to be calculated at which free cash flows of the project should be discounted. Since the project will be solely financed by selling new shares, cost of equity will be used as the discount rate. Beta for the company can be assumed to be equal to average of the betas of the competitors of the company. This average beta value comes out to be 1.2. Risk free rate is 0.17% while risk premium has been estimated to be 6%. Thus by putting these values in CAPM formula, we can find the cost of equity for the company which is 7.39%.

Executive Summary. Wathen is attempting to value the proposed acquisition of Pinkerton in an effort to determine whether bids of $85 million to $100 million is value enhancing for CPP’s shareholders. Additionally, Wathen must choose between two financing options: (1) raising $100 Million via a $75 million debt structure at 11.5% interest rate together with a $25 million equity investment for a 45% stake in the combined company and (2) a $100 million debt facility at 13.5% interest rate.

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。

6.4. The multiples give a valuation range of $91.85 to $148.23. The EPS and Sales multiples are close to the industry average giving a range value very close to the offer price - $91.85-$95.09. The EPS and Book value are very much affected by the leverage structure and thus may be not a true representation.

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%.

At a young age he had the drive and work ethic to make money. He was influenced to by his father who was a stock broker and bought stock at the age of 11. He finished his M.S. in Economics from Columbia Business School where his studied under Benjamin Graham and Phil Fisher. When working at Benjamin Graham’s partnership, he thought the guidelines of investment were too stringent, he felt there were opportunities for higher profits but company guidelines inhibited potential profits. After leaving Graham partnership, he was involved with 6 partnerships. Warren Buffet went on to organize the sale of his partnerships, ultimately securing his job as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He used his critical thinking skills to build Berkshire Hathaway. One of his abilities is the ability to identify talent and recruitment of talent. Warren Buffet believes that gossiping, lying, breaking agreements, becoming defensive, feeling entitled, and withholding key information slows down the decision making process (Market, 2011). These are the key fundamentals that have made Warren Buffet a success.

Moreover, it deals with the immediate opening problem of the case: the market’s response to the PacifiCorp announcement. Finally, it should help to motivate a discussion of Buffett’s investment philosophy.

As Star River is a private company and has not issued stock, we need to make several assumptions when calculating market value of equity and price of equity. Analysis of similar companies reveals that Wintronics, Inc. and STOR-Max Corp. are the most similar firms in the market. To calculate Star River’s market value of equity I used market to book value method. I found M/B for Wintronics to be 4.4 (market price per share/book value per share) and 3.9 for STOR-Max. an average M/B ratio is 4.15, so multiplying Star River’s book value of equity of 47004 by 4.15 I found Star River’s market value of equity to be SGD195,066.6M. Average beta of these two companies is 1.615. The global equity market premium is 6%, and I use 10 year Singapore T-bond yield of 3.6% as my risk free rate.

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

According to the case, there are stock price changes for Berkshire Hathaway and Scottish Power plc on the day of the acquisition announcement. Also, the bid price for PacifiCorp is $9.4 billion. After knowing this announcement, Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares price went up and make them gained in market value $2.17 billion. In Berkshire and other investors’ point of view, After Berkshire takeover PacifiCorp, it might have a good development and future so that the stock price went up. Berkshire believed that PacifiCorp can have good earning returns in the future. The intrinsic value is more valuable than its cost so they are willing to pay $9.4 billion to acquire.

We valued the company using four different methods; Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Modified Internal Rate of Return and Profitability Index. We began with the Net Present Value, or NPV, calculation. NPV values an investment’s profitability based on the projected future cash inflows and outflows of the investment, discounted back to present value using the WACC. The calculations for NPV are presented in Appendix 2. We started by separating cash inflows and outflows by each year. We used Bob Prescott’s estimates for the revenue per year and related operating costs of cost of goods sold as

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Berkshire Hathaway was incorporated in 1889 as Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing, and eventually grew to become one of New England’s biggest textile producers, accounting for 25% of the United States’ cotton textile production. In 1955, Berkshire merged with Hathaway Manufacturing and began a secular decline due to inflation, technological change, and intensifying competition from foreign competitors. In 1965, Buffett and some partners acquired control of Berkshire Hathaway, believing that its financial decline could be reversed. Over the next 20 years, it became apparent that large capital investments would be required to remain competitive and that even then the financial returns would be mediocre. Fortunately, the textile group generated Berkshire Hathaway "Class A" vs. S&P 500 Composite Index enough cash in the initial $100,000 years to permit the firm to purchase two Berkshire Hathaway Inc. "A" insurance companies $10,000 headquartered in Omaha: National Indemnity Company and National $1,000 Fire & Marine Insurance S&P 500 Composite Index Company. Acquisitions of other

Berkshire Hathaway, Inc was a small textile company. Its chairman and CEO of the company is Warren Buffett, the world's third richest man. He invested his partnership in invests in Berkshire Hathaway at the price of $8.6 million (The Essential Buffett, p27). It took him over 35years to grow its book value from $19 per share to $37,987 per share with a rate of 24 percent compounded annually (The Essential Buffett, p44). Buffett started purchasing other businesses, which were primarily insurance companies, with profits from the declining original textile business. In 1985, the original textile business was shut down and Berkshire Hathaway started the insurance business.

According to the case, there are stock price changes for Berkshire Hathaway and Scottish Power plc on the day of the acquisition announcement. Also, the bid price for PacifiCorp is $9.4 billion. After knowing this announcement, Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares price went up and make them gained in market value $2.17 billion. In Berkshire and other investors’ point of view, After Berkshire takeover PacifiCorp, it might have a good development and future so that the stock price went up. Berkshire believed that PacifiCorp can have good earning returns in the future. The intrinsic value is more valuable than its cost so they are willing to pay $9.4 billion to acquire.

If we look at the financial summary of M.L.I we can calculate how much Winkler can bid for this company. We can calculate Net Present Value, Indicial Rate of Return and Payback period for this project. If we take last year and estimated after tax Income as a projection and investment of $2 million we can calculate: