Assume you have just been hired as a business manager of PizzaPalace, a regional pizza restaurant chain
Assume you have just been hired as a business manager of PizzaPalace, a regional pizza restaurant chain. The company’s EBIT was $120 million last year and is not expected to grow. PizzaPalace is in the 25% state-plus-federal tax bracket, the risk-free rate is 6 per-cent, and the market risk premium is 6 percent. The firm is currently financed with all equity, and it has 10 million shares outstanding.
When you took your corporate finance course, your instructor stated that most
firms’ owners would be financially better off if the firms used some debt. When you
suggested this to your new boss, he encouraged you to pursue the idea. If the company
were to recapitalize, then debt would be issued, and the funds received would be used to
repurchase stock. As a first step, assume that you obtained from the firm’s investment
banker the following estimated costs of debt for the firm at different capital structures:
Percent Financed
with Debt, wd rd
0% —
20 8.0%
30 8.5
40 10.0
50 12.0
a. Using the free cash flow valuation model, show the only avenues by which capital
structure can affect value.
b. (1) What is business risk? What factors influence a firm’s business risk?
(2) What is operating leverage, and how does it affect a firm’s business risk? Show
the operating break-even point if a company has fixed costs of $200, a sales price
of $15, and variable costs of $10.
c. Explain the difference between financial risk and business risk.
d. To illustrate the effects of financial leverage for PizzaPalace’s management, consider
two hypothetical firms: Firm U (which uses no debt financing) and Firm L (which
uses $4,000 of 8% interest rate debt). Both firms have $20,000 in net operating
capital, a 25% tax rate, and an expected EBIT of $2,400.
(1) Construct partial income statements, which start with EBIT, for the two firms.
(2) Calculate NOPAT, ROIC, and ROE for both firms.
(3) What does this example illustrate about the impact of financial leverage on ROE?
(4) Why did leverage increase ROE in this example?
e. What happens to ROE for Firm U and Firm L if EBIT falls to $1,600? What hap-
pens if EBIT falls to $1,200? What is the after-tax cost of debt? What does this imply
about the impact of leverage on risk and return?
f. What does capital structure theory attempt to do? What lessons can be learned from
capital structure theory? Be sure to address the MM models.
g. What does the empirical evidence say about capital structure theory? What are the
implications for managers?
h. With the preceding points in mind, now consider the optimal capital structure for
PizzaPalace.
(1) For each capital structure under consideration, calculate the levered beta, the
cost of equity, and the WACC.
(2) Now calculate the corporate value for each capital structure.
i. Describe the recapitalization process and apply it to PizzaPalace. Calculate the
resulting value of the debt that will be issued, the resulting market value of equity,
the price per share, the number of shares repurchased, and the remaining shares.
Considering only the capital structures under analysis, what is PizzaPalace’s optimal
capital structure?
j. Liu Industries is a highly levered firm. Suppose there is a large probability that Liu
will default on its debt. The value of Liu’s operations is $4 million. The firm’s debt
consists of 1-year, zero coupon bonds with a face value of $2 million. Liu’s volatility,
σ, is 0.60, and the risk-free rate rRF is 6%.
Because Liu’s debt is risky, its equity is like a call option and can be valued
with the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model (OPM). (See Chapter 8 for details
of the OPM.)
(1) What are the values of Liu’s stock and debt? What is the yield on the debt?
(2) What are the values of Liu’s stock and debt for volatilities of 0.40 and 0.80?
What are yields on the debt?
(3) What incentives might the manager of Liu have if she understands the relationship
between equity value and volatility? What might debtholders do in response?
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