Question 1

Ron Natin heads a committee that oversees the USA Insurance portfolio with total assets of $25 billion. The portfolio has 15% of total assets allocated to foreign investments, which include both international stocks and bonds. The committee has adopted a position that the domestic markets are efficient and thus, has indexed the domestic portion of the portfolio. Each unique asset class in the domestic portfolio has been benchmarked individually. The committee believes that foreign markets are less efficient and utilizes active managers for this asset class. The foreign allocation is 60% stocks and 40% bonds. The committee has divided the foreign stock portfolio equally among three different managers. The committee closely monitors the risk level of these managers by reviewing their portfolio betas (current betas: 1.1, 0.95, and 1.3).
As part of his committee responsibilities, Natin is required to review all reports and speeches prepared by other members of the committee before they are presented to the public. One of the committee members, Mclanie Henley, has submitted a speech on the subject of international diversification and the international capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) that she will give to a group of MBA students at a local university. Following are excerpts from her proposed speech:
International investment and diversification is an important concern in money management and, of the many relevant issues to discuss, there are two key insights that I will Take time to explain. First of all, it is essential to realize that the currency exposure of a foreign stock investment is the sensitivity of the stock price to a change in the value of the local currency and that a positive correlation between stock prices and the local currency would mean that the local stock price increases as a result of a depreciation of the local currency. Second, as future asset managers you should realize that improvements in a foreign nation's economic activity that result in an increase in real interest rates will decrease bond prices, but will be offset by an appreciation of the home currency.
The ICAPM is similar to the domestic CAPM in several ways. For example, both models assume that investors are risk-averse, preferring lower levels of risk and greater expected returns, that all investors have the same expectations for the risk and return of every asset, and that all investors should hold some combination of a risk-free asset and the market portfolio.
The IGAPM is a useful construct to determine asset prices in a global context. Strategies that depend explicitly on asset prices derived from the ICAPM can rely on these asset prices even if currency hedging is inhibited in certain markets by legal restrictions on such activities.
The committee monitors the investments of its equity managers by modeling the expected returns of each individual stock. The model used is (he ICAPM. One such stock, a Swiss medical equipment manufacturer, has a world beta of 1.2. The world market risk premium is 4%, and the Swiss franc offers a risk premium of 0.5%. The currency exposure is 0.5, and the applicable risk-free rate is 5%. The expected return on this stock according to the ICAPM model is closest to:

Options :

A : 9.80%.

B : 10.05%.

C : 12.00%.

Answer: B

Question 2

Voyager Inc., a primarily internet-based media company, is buying The Daily, a media company with exposure to newspapers, television, and the internet.

Voyager's acquisition of The Daily is The company's second major acquisition in its history. The previous acquisition was at the height of the merger boom in the year 2000. Voyager purchased the Dragon Company at a premium to net asset value, thereby doubling the company's size. Voyager used the pooling method to account for the acquisition of Dragon; however, because of FASB changes to the Business Combination Standard, Voyager will use the acquisition method to account for the Daily acquisition.

Voyager has made an all-cash offer of $45 per share to acquire The Daily. Wall Street is skeptical about the merger. While Voyager has been growing its revenues by 40% per year, The Daily's revenue growth has been less than 2% per year. Michael Renner. the CFO of Voyager, defends the acquisition by stating that The Daily has accumulated a large amount of tax losses and that the combined company can benefit by immediately increasing net income after the merger. In addition, Renner states that the New Voyager will eliminate the inefficiencies of the internet operations and thereby boost future earnings. Renner believes that the merged companies will have a value of $17.5 billion.
In the past, The Daily's management has publicly stated its opposition to merging with any company, a position management still maintains. As a result of this situation, Voyager submitted their merger proposal directly to The Daily's board of directors, while the firm's CEO was on vacation. Upon returning from vacation, The Daily's CEO issued a public statement claiming that the proposed merger was unacceptable under any circumstances.
The management of The Daily is not pleased with the $45 per share offering price. Which of the following is the most likely takeover defense The Daily would consider in an effort to stop the acquisition?

Options :

A : Immediately amend The Daily by-laws to establish a staggered board.

B : File suit against Voyager for antitrust violations.

C : Restrict the voting rights of shareholders owning more than 10% of The Daily stock.

Answer: B

Question 3

Arnaud Aims is assisting with the analysis of several firms in the retail department store industry. Because one of the industry members, Flavia Stores, has negative earnings for the current year, Aims wishes to normalize earnings to establish more meaningful P/E ratios. For the current year (2008) and six previous years, selected financial data are given below. All data are in euros.

Aims wishes to estimate normalized EPS for 2008 using two different methods, the method of historical average EPS and the method of average rate of return on equity. He will leave 2008 EPS and ROI out of his estimates. Based on his normalized EPS estimates, he will compute a trailing P/E for 2008. The stock price for Flavia Stores is 26.50.
Aims is also looking at price-to-book ratios as an alternative to price-to-earnings ratios. Three of the advantages of P/B ratios that Aims recalls are:
Advantage 1: Because book value is a cumulative balance sheet account encompassing several years, book value is more likely to be positive than EPS.
Advantage 2: For many companies, especially service companies, human capital is more important than physical capital as an operating asset.
Advantage 3: Book value represents the historical purchase cost of assets, as well as accumulated accounting depreciation expenses. Inflation and technological changes can drive a wedge between the book value and market value of assets.
Aims used a constant growth DDM to establish a justified P/E ratio based on forecasted fundamentals. One of his associates asked Aims if he could easily establish a justified price-to-sales (P/B) ratio and price-to-book (P/B) ratio from his justified P/E ratio. Aims replied, 'I could do this fairly easily)
If I multiply the P/E ratio times the net profit margin, the ratio of net income to sales, the result will be the P/S ratio. If I multiply the P/E ratio times the return on equity, the ratio of net income to book value of equity, the result will be the P/B ratio.'
Aims's associate likes to use the price-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio because it appears to address the effect of growth on the P/E ratio. For example, if a firm's P/E ratio is 20 and its forecasted 5-year growth rate is 10%, the PEG ratio is 2.0. The associate likes to invest in firms that have an above-industry-average PEG ratio. The associate also says that he likes to invest in firms whose leading P/E is greater than its trailing P/E. Aims tells the associate that he would like to investigate these two investment criteria further.
Finally, Aims makes two comments to his associate about valuation ratios based on EBITDA and on dividends.
Comment 1: EBITDA is a pre-interest-expense figure, so I prefer a ratio of total equity value to EBITDA over a ratio of enterprise value to EBITDA .
Comment 2: Dividend yields are useful information because they are one component of total return. However, they can be an incomplete measure of return, as investors trade off future earnings growth to receive higher current dividends.
Is Aims correct in describing how we could transform a justified P/E ratio into a P/S ratio or a P/B ratio?

Options :

A : Yes.

B : No. He is correct about the P/S ratio but incorrect about the P/B ratio.

C : No. He is correct about the P/B ratio but incorrect about the P/S ratio.

Answer: A

Question 4

Theresa Ponder and Rod Owens are analysts for a multinational investment bank, Datko Bank, based in Canada. Datko's clients have been advised to diversify globally, due to a decrease in expected long-term growth for North American economies.
As part of her analysis of global stocks, Ponder uses the domestic CAPM and the international CAPM to value stocks. She makes the following statements regarding the extension of the domestic capital asset pricing model (CAPM);
Statement 1: To extend the domestic CAPM to international asset pricing using the extended CAPM, one must make two additional assumptions. First, that global investors have identical consumption baskets and second, that interest rate parity holds throughout the world.
Statement 2: The extended CAPM assumes that exchange rate changes are predictable so that there is no real exchange rate risk.
As the primary analyst for European securities, Owens analyzes the stocks in the countries of Catonia and Arbutia. Catonia and Arbutia arc not currently members of the European Union, but have a timetable for joining by the end of the decade.
To evaluate Caionian stocks, he uses the international CAPM. Owens mentions that a foreign currency risk premium must be added in this model, and that the risk premium depends on various parity conditions. He finds that the foreign exchange expectation relation and interest rate parity hold between Canada and Catonia. The interest rate in Canada is 2%, and the interest rate in Catonia is 5%.
One of the companies Owens follows in Arbutia is Diversified Metal Finishers. Diversified produces customized sheet metal applications for manufacturers throughout the world. The firm enjoys a competitive advantage because Arbutia is a commodity-rich country which allows Diversified to source its inputs locally. Owens has found that when the Arbutian currency changes by 10%, the value of the Diversified stock generally changes by 6%.
Ponder is also analyzing stocks in the nations of Bisharov and Dineva. She is estimating the expected return using the international CAPM (ICAPM) for Ivanova Metals, located in Dineva. The data for Canada, Dineva, and lvanova are shown in the following. The foreign currency is denoted as the local currency (LC).
Canadian risk-free rate 2.00%
Dineva risk-free rate 8.00%
World market risk premium 6.00%
Dineva index beta to world market index 1.40
Dineva local market risk premium 7.50%
Ivanova beta to local index 1.30
Foreign currency risk premium 3.00%
Dineva sensitivity of LC stock returns to LC 0.70
Owens examines Ponder's analysis and makes the following statements:
Statement 1: To protect the growing economy and prevent capital flight, the Bisharov government taxes foreign investors at higher rates and has placed limits on currency convertibility. In Dineva, the government has taken a more hands-off approach and does not regulate .foreign investment. If the world were to consist entirely of countries like Bisharov, then the ICAPM cannot be applied.
Statement 2; Furthermore, inflation is often a concern in emerging market countries. To measure an exchange rate between Canada and an emerging market currency that is adjusted for inflation, a real exchange rate should be calculated. Assuming no change in the real exchange rate, the change in an emerging market's asset values in domestic currency will just reflect the emerging market's asset returns in local currency and the difference between inflation rates in the domestic and foreign countries.
Regarding the statements made by Owens on the ICAPM and inflation, are both statements correct?

Options :

A : Yes.

B : No, both statements are incorrect.

C : No, one of the statements is correct but the other statement is incorrect.

Answer: A

Question 5

James Kelley is the CFO of X-Sport Inc., a manufacturer of high-end outdoor sporting equipment. Using both debt and equity, X-Sport has been acquiring small competitor companies rather rapidly over the past few years, leading Kelley to believe that the firm's capital structure may have drifted from its optimal mix. Kelley has been asked by the board of directors to evaluate the situation and provide a presentation that includes details of the firm's capita! structure as well as a risk assessment. In order to assist with his analysis, Kelley has collected information on the current financial situation of X-Sport. He has also projected the financial information for alternative financing plans. This information is presented in Exhibit 1.

After carefully analyzing the data, Kelley writes his analysis and proposal and submits the report to Richard Haywood, the chairman and CEO of X-Sport Inc. Excerpts from the analysis and proposal follow:
* In selecting a re-financing plan, we must not push our leverage ratio too high. An overly aggressive leverage ratio will likely cause debt rating agencies to downgrade our debt rating from its current Baa rating, causing our cost of debt to rise dramatically. This effect is explained using the static trade-off capital structure theory, which states that if our debt usage becomes high enough, the marginal increase in the interest tax shield will be more than The marginal increase in the costs of financial distress. However, using some additional leverage will benefit the company by reducing the net agency costs of equity required to align the interests of X-Sport management with its shareholders.
* In the event that X-Sport decides to proceed with a recapitalization plan, I recommend Plan D since it is the most consistent with the shareholders' interests.
Haywood reviews the report and calls Kelley into his office to discuss the proposal. Haywood suggests that Flan B would be the most appropriate choice for adjusting X-Sport's capital structure. Before Kelley can argue, however, the two are interrupted by a previously scheduled meeting with a supplier.
Haywood takes Kelley's data and proposes to the board of directors that X-Sport pursue one of three alternatives to restructure the company. The first alternative is Plan B from Kelley's analysis. The second alternative involves separating GearTech, one of the companies acquired over the last few years, from the rest of the company by issuing new GearTech shares to X-Sport common shareholders. The third alternative involves creating a new company, Euro-Sport, out of the firm's European operations and selling 35% of the new Euro-Sport shares to the public while retaining 65% of the shares within X-Sport. After some persuading, Haywood convinces the seven-member board (two of whom were former executives at GearTech) to accept the second alternative, which he had favored from the beginning. The board puts together an announcement to its shareholders as well as the general public, detailing the terms and goals of the plan.
A group of shareholders, upset about the board's plan, submit a formal objection to X-Sport's board as well as to the SEC. In the objection, the shareholders state that the independence of the board has been compromised to the detriment of the company and its shareholders. The objection also states that:
* The value of X-Sport's common stock has been impaired as a result of the poor corporate governance system.
* The liability risk of X-Sport has increased due to the increased possibility of future transactions that benefit X-Sport's directors, without regard to the long-term interests of shareholders.
* The asset risk of X-Sport has increased due to the inability of investors to trust the GearTech financial disclosures necessary to value the division.
Determine whether Kelley's report is correct with regard to the statements made about the static trade-off theory of capital structure and the net agency costs of equity.

Options :

A : Kelley is only correct with respect to the static trade-off theory

B : Kelley is only correct with respect to the net agency cost of equity.

C : Kelley is incorrect with respect to the static trade-off theory and the net agency cost of equity.

Answer: B