Chapter 17, Problem 3ST

Which of the following is an example of managing economic exposure by flexible sourcing policy?  An American company sells its products in Brazil and Portugal. Reduced sales in Brazil due to the dollar appreciation against the “real” can be compensated by increased sales in Portugal due to the dollar depreciation against the euro. If yen is strong, it is preferable for a Japanese company to open a manufacturing subsidiary in the U.S. to produce and sell its products there. An American IT company hires software developers in Ukraine because of the weak position of grivna against dollar. A Canadian company spends a lot of money for research & development activities to improve its reputation and gain more customers.

Determine the key reasons why a multinational corporation might decide to borrow in a country such as Brazil, where interest rates are high, rather than in a country like Switzerland, where interest rates are low. Provide support for your rationale. What impact does foreign investment have on the weighted average cost of capital calculations?

Consider Firm A and Firm B that both produce the same product. Firm A would more likely have more stable cash flows if its percentage of foreign sales were ____ and the number of foreign countries it sold products to was ____. A. higher; small B. lower; small C. higher; large D. higher; large