BMAN23000A FOUNDATIONS OF FINANCE 2017
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BMAN23000A
FOUNDATIONS OF FINANCE
2017
SECTION A
SECTION B
Question 11 (answer all parts)
Nick has just turned 25 and considers joining the pension plan offered by his employer. If he joins the pension plan, Nick will need to pay annual contributions during his employment. The first contribution should be paid on his 26th birthday (i.e., in a year’s time). Nick plans to retire on his 65th birthday (i.e., in 40 years’ time), when he would have to pay his last contribution to the pension plan. His life expectancy is 85 years. During his retirement (i.e., until his 85th birthday), Nick wants to receive £30,000 per year, starting from his 66th birthday. The interest rate that applies to the entire period is 5% per year.
a) Find the present value (today) of the cash flows that Nick wants to receive from his 66th birthday until his 85th birthday.
(10 marks)
b) Find the amount that Nick has to contribute to the pension plan every year during his employment to finance the cash flows he wants to receive during his retirement.
(10 marks)
c) Nick finds the annual contribution he has to make very high and seeks financial advice. An advisor suggests to him to retire at the age of 70 instead of 65. If he follows this advice, find the annual contribution that Nick will have to make during his employment to finance the cash flows of £30,000 per year that he wants to receive during his retirement (i.e., from his 71st birthday until his 85th birthday). Explain why this is lower than the annual contribution calculated in b).
(10 marks)
d) Nick is also aware of the possibility that his life expectancy may increase to 90 years, and he is concerned that he will not receive any cash flow after the age of
85. If he decides to retire at the age of 70, how much will he need to contribute to the pension plan per year during his employment to receive £30,000 per year during his retirement until the age of 90?
(5 marks) (TOTAL 35 marks)
Question 12 (answer all parts)
a) You have invested only in the FiveStars Fund, a mutual fund that invests mainly in stocks. At the moment, the FiveStars Fund has an expected return of 32% and a volatility of 20%. Your broker suggests that you add the Omega Fund to your current portfolio. The Omega Fund has an expected return of 20%, a volatility of 30% and a correlation of 0.25 with the FiveStars Fund. Risk-free interest rate is equal to 5%.
Calculate the required return on the Omega Fund.
(5 marks)
Will adding Omega Fund improve your portfolio?
(3 marks)
b) Suppose you have invested all your capital ($200,000) in a portfolio of one stock only, Facebook. Facebook has an expected return of 18% and a volatility of 35%. You know that the market portfolio has an expected return of 11% and a volatility of 13%. Assume that the risk-free interest rate is 3%. Under the CAPM assumptions:
What alternative investment has the lowest possible volatility while having the same expected return as Facebook? What is the volatility of this new portfolio?
(4 marks)
What investment has the highest possible expected return given that you want to maintain the same volatility as Facebook? What is the expected return of this new portfolio?
(4 marks)
c) Briefly discuss the ways you know to diversify a portfolio.
(6 marks)
d) Briefly describe the CAPM assumptions.
(3 marks)
e) Describe what each of the following pairs of asset pricing models has in common, and how they differ:
i. APT and CAPM
ii. CAPM and F-F-C (Fama-French-Carhart) model
(5 marks)
Question 12 continued
f) Suppose that the expected risk premium on small stocks relative to large stocks is 7%, the expected risk premium on high book-to-market stocks relative to low book-to-market stocks is 5%, and the expected risk premium on prior one year momentum portfolio is 4%. Assume that the expected risk premium on the overall stock market relative to the risk-free rate is 8%. Facebook stock has a market beta of 1.3, a size beta of 0.3, a book-to-market beta of 0.2, and a prior one year momentum beta of 0.1. If the risk-free rate is 3%, what is the expected return on Facebook stock according to the F-F-C model?
(5 marks) (TOTAL 35 marks)
SECTION C (35 marks)
Question 13 (answer all parts)
GlaxoSmithKline plc is a pharmaceutical company. It is considering the replacement of one of its existing machines with a new model. The existing machine can be sold now for £8,000. The new machine costs £50,000 and will generate free cash flows of £11,416.55 p.a. over the next 6 years. The corporate tax rate is 35%. The new machine has average risk. GlaxoSmithKline’s debt-equity ratio is 0.5 and it plans to maintain a constant debt-equity ratio. GlaxoSmithKline’s cost of debt is 5.85% and its cost of equity is 13.10%.
a) Compute GlaxoSmithKline’s weighted average cost of capital.
(5 marks)
b) What is the NPV of the new machine and should GlaxoSmithKline replace the old machine with the new one?
(10 marks)
c) The average debt-to-value ratio in the pharmaceutical industry is 20%. What would GlaxoSmithKline’s cost of equity be if it took on the average amount of debt of its industry at a cost of debt of 5%? Do this calculation assuming the company does not pay taxes.
(10 marks)
d) Given the capital structure change in question c), according to Modigliani and Miller’s theory one could argue that GlaxoSmithKline’s WACC should decline because its cost of equity capital has declined. Discuss.
(10 marks) (TOTAL 35 marks)
Question 14 (answer all parts)
a) Describe the market reactions that are typically generated by cash dividend and stock repurchase announcements. Why do these reactions exist? Also, what is dividend smoothing?
(10 marks)
b) Explain what a convertible bond is. Describe how a convertible bond is priced on the market before its expiration, also using a graph.
(5 marks)
c) What is a timing real option? Why should financial managers take such option into account when it is embedded in a project and which decision rule should the manager follow? In the context of the Black-Scholes model, what are the variables that affect the value of a timing real option?
(5 marks)
d) Hightech Plc is considering whether or not to go ahead with the production of an innovative product. The project (called ‘Project A’) requires an initial investment (at time 0) of £10 million, while the company expects the future cash flows to depend on market demand. If demand is high, starting from next year (time 1) the project will produce a perpetual cash flow of £800,000. In case of low demand, the perpetual cash flow will amount to just £300,000. The two scenarios of high and low demand are equally likely (50% probability for each scenario). The project’s cost of capital is 8%. Should Hightech Plc accept Project A today?
(7 marks)
e) Hightech Plc is considering an alternative strategy (‘Project B’). The company could alternatively invest the same amount of money today (i.e. £10 million) to purchase less specialised production machines with positive future salvage value. By following this path, the company would essentially gain the option to sell the machines next year (at time 1 and just after receiving the cash flow for time 1) and recover £8 million. Assuming that the perpetual cash flows and the cost of capital are the same as those in part d), should Hightech Plc accept Project B today? What is the value of the real abandonment option embedded in Project B that is not available in case of Project A?
(8 marks) (TOTAL 35 marks)
2022-01-22