Estimate and Forecast Changes in Bond and Stock Prices business and finance homework help

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Week 6 – Assignment: Estimate and Forecast Changes in Bond and Stock Prices

Instructions

Use the That’s WACC. The Best WACC Calculator.

to generate estimates of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for five different companies (pick companies from different industries such that you find a relatively wide range of WACC estimates):

Build a three column table displaying the full company name and its stock symbol in the first column, a brief description of the company and its main line(s) of business in the second column, and the company’s WACC estimate (the value given in the From Financial Statements column) in the third column.

Below your table, write an essay discussing the importance and process of calculating the weighted average cost of capital. The list below suggests some (though not all) of the topics that you should address in your paper:

Why do firms need to know this value?

How is the weighted average cost of capital used to make decisions?

What are each of the components of the weighted average cost of capital and how are each of these components estimated?

What are some possible reasons for why the WACC’s in your table differ from one another? Be sure to discuss the relationship between risk and expected return as reflected in bond and stock yields.

You must use a minimum of three (3) scholarly sources for your paper.

Length: 3-4 pages not including title page and references

Your response should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards.

Please visit these sites for help:

http://www.investinganswers.com/financial-dictiona…

http://accountingexplained.com/misc/corporate-fina…

https://www.accountingcoach.com/balance-sheet/expl…

Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)

What it is:

Weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the average rate of return a company expects to compensate all its different investors. The weights are the fraction of each financing source in the company’s target capital structure.

How it works (Example):

Here is the basic formula for weighted average cost of capital:

WACC = ((E/V) * Re) + [((D/V) * Rd)*(1-T)]

E = Market value of the company’s equity

D = Market value of the company’s debt

V = Total Market Value of the company (E + D)

Re = Cost of Equity

Rd = Cost of Debt

T= Tax Rate

A company is typically financed using a combination of debt (bonds) and equity (stocks). Because a company may receive more funding from one source than another, we calculate a weighted average to find out how expensive it is for a company to raise the funds needed to buy buildings, equipment, and inventory.

Let’s look at an example:

Assume newly formed Corporation ABC needs to raise $1 million in capital so it can buy office buildings and the equipment needed to conduct its business. The company issues and sells 6,000 shares of stock at $100 each to raise the first $600,000. Because shareholders expect a return of 6% on their investment, the cost of equity is 6%.

Corporation ABC then sells 400 bonds for $1,000 each to raise the other $400,000 in capital. The people who bought those bonds expect a 5% return, so ABC’s cost of debt is 5%.

Corporation ABC’s total market value is now ($600,000 equity + $400,000 debt) = $1 million and its corporate tax rate is 35%. Now we have all the ingredients to calculate Corporation ABC’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC).

WACC = (($600,000/$1,000,000) x .06) + [(($400,000/$1,000,000) x .05) * (1-0.35))] = 0.049 = 4.9%

Corporation ABC’s weighted average cost of capital is 4.9%.

This means for every $1 Corporation ABC raises from investors, it must pay its investors almost $0.05 in return.

Why it Matters:

It’s important for a company to know its weighted average cost of capital as a way to gauge the expense of funding future projects. The lower a company’s WACC, the cheaper it is for a company to fund new projects.

A company looking to lower its WACC may decide to increase its use of cheaper financing sources. For instance, Corporation ABC may issue more bonds instead of stock because it can get the financing more cheaply. Because this would increase the proportion of debt to equity, and because the debt is cheaper than the equity, the company’s weighted average cost of capital would decrease.

Weighted Average Cost of Capital

Weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the average of the minimum after-tax required rate of return which a company must earn for all of its security holders (i.e. common stock-holders, preferred stock-holders and debt-holders). It is calculated by finding out cost of each component of a company’s capital structure, multiplying it with the relevant proportion of the component to total capital and then summing up the proportionate cost of components. WACC is a very useful tool because it tells whether a particular project is increasing shareholders’ wealth or just compensating the cost.

Formula

For a company which has two sources of finance, namely equity and debt, WACC is calculated using the following formula:

WACC = r(E) × w(E) + r(D) × (1 – t) × w(D)

Cost of equity

In the formula for WACC, r(E) is the cost of equity i.e. the required rate of return on common stock of the company. It is the minimum rate of return which a company must earn to keep its common stock price from falling. Cost of equity is estimated using different models, such as dividend discount model (DDM) and capital asset pricing model (CAPM).

After-tax cost of debt

In the WACC formula, r(D) × (1 – t) represents the after-tax cost of debt i.e. the after-tax rate of return which the debt-holders need to earn till the maturity of the debt. Cost of debt of a company is based on the yield to maturity of the relevant instruments. If no yield to maturity is available, the cost can be estimated using the instrument’s current yield, etc. After-tax cost of debt is included in the calculation of WACC because debt offers a tax shield i.e. interest expense on debt reduces taxes. This reduction in taxes is reflected in reduction in cost of debt capital.

Weights

w(E) is the weight of equity in the company’s total capital. It is calculated by dividing the market value of the company’s equity by sum of the market values of equity and debt.

w(D) is the weight of debt component in the company’s capital structure. It is calculated by dividing the market value of the company’s debt by sum of the market values of equity and debt.

Ideally, WACC should be estimated using target capital structure, which is the capital structure the company’s management intends to maintain in the long-run. For practical purposes, market values are usually used and where the market values are not available, book values may be used to find out the weight.

Example

Sanstreet, Inc. went public by issuing 1 million shares of common stock @ $25 per share. The shares are currently trading at $30 per share. Current risk free rate is 4%, market risk premium is 8% and the company has a beta coefficient of 1.2.

During last year, it issued 50,000 bonds of $1,000 par paying 10% coupon annually maturing in 20 years. The bonds are currently trading at $950.

The tax rate is 30%. Calculate the weighted average cost of capital.

Solution:

First we need to calculate the proportion of equity and debt in Sanstreet, Inc. capital structure.

Current Market Value of Equity = 1,000,000 × $30 = $30,000,000

Current Market Value of Debt = 50,000 × $950 = $47,500,000

Total Market Value of Debt and Equity = $77,500,000

Weight of Equity = $30,000,000 / $77,500,000 = 38.71%

Weight of Debt = $47,500,000 / $77,500,000 = 61.29%, or

Weight of Debt = 100% minus cost of equity = 100% − 38.71% = 61.29%

Now, we need estimates for cost of equity and after-tax cost of debt.

We can estimate cost of equity using either dividend discount model (DDM) or capital asset pricing model (CAPM).

Cost of equity (DDM) = expected dividend in 1 year /current stock price + growth rate

Cost of equity (CAPM) = risk free rate + beta coefficient × market risk premium

In the current example, the data available allow us to use only CAPM to calculate cost of equity.

Cost of Equity = Risk Free Rate + Beta × Market Risk Premium = 4% + 1.2 × 8% = 13.6%

Cost of debt is equal to the yield to maturity of the bonds. With the given data, we can find that yield to maturity is 10.61%. It is calculated using hit and trial method. We can also estimate it using MS Excel RATE function.

For inclusion in WACC, we need after-tax cost of debt, which is 7.427% [= 10.61% × (1 − 30%)].

Having all the necessary inputs, we can plug the values in the WACC formula to get an estimate of 9.82%.

WACC = 38.71% × 13.6% + 61.29% × 7.427% = 9.8166%

It is called weighted average cost of capital because as you see the cost of different components is weighted according to their proportion in the capital structure and then summed up.

Importance of WACC

Weighted average cost of capital is the discount rate used in calculation of net present value (NPV) and other valuations models such as free cash flow valuation model. It is the hurdle rate in the capital budgeting decisions.

WACC represents the average risk faced by the organization. It would require an upward adjustment if it has to be used to calculate NPV of projects which are riskier than the company’s average projects and a downward adjustment in case of less risky projects. Further, WACC is after all an estimation. Different models for calculation of cost of equity may yield different values.

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