he CFO of Baldwin Corporation, Jeff Warren has decided to invest some money in the financial market to diversify the risks of business operations and increase rate of return. He has been reading...

he CFO of Baldwin Corporation, Jeff Warren has decided to invest some money in the financial market to diversify the risks of business operations and increase rate of return. He has been reading corporate finance books and journal articles to enhance his knowledge on risk/return relationships, capital asset pricing model (CAPM), cost of capital and valuation.

On risk/return relationship, Jeff has learnt that there is apositive relationship between risk and return. This implies that the higher the risk, the greater the expected return on an investment. This relationship is clearly explained by thecapital asset pricing model in this equation:

R

_E
 =R
_F +β x (R
_M – R_F)

whereR

_E

=expected return of the security,R
_F = the risk-free rate,β = Beta of the security,R
_M = the expected return on the market, and (R
_M – R_F) represents the difference between the expected return on the market and the risk-free rate.

According to the CAPM, the expected return of any security depends on its risk measured by its beta. Jeff found out that thebetais a measure of the risk of a security arising from exposure to general economic and market movements i.e., systematic riskas opposed to business specific risks or factors (i.e.,unsystematic risk). The higher the beta, the greater the systematic risk and vice versa. The market portfolio of all investable assets has a beta of 1. Jeff learnt that If β = 0, then the asset has no risk of financial loss. Therefore, the expected return of the security should be equal to the risk-free rate. If β = 1, that asset has same risk as the market and the expected return should equal the expected return on the market such as the S&P 500 market index. To Jeff this makes sense because the beta of the market portfolio is exactly 1. However, if a security’s β = 2, then that security is twice riskier than the market and the expected return should be higher than the return of the market portfolio.

Jeff understands that the risk-free rate used in the CAPM is the government-issued treasury bill rate. Since thetreasury bill has no risk, any other investment having some risk will have to have a higher rate of return than the risk-free rate in order to induce any investor to invest in that security. Jeff is considering the stock ofAdobe Inc. and Exxon Mobil
. Adobe Inc. has a beta of 1.6 and Exxon Mobil has a beta of 0.9. The risk-free rate is 3.5%, and the difference between the expected return on the market and the risk free is 9.0%.

Exhibit 1: Historical Returns of Adobe Inc.

1. You notice that stock returns fluctuate daily in the financial market making it risky to invest in stocks. You want to usestandard deviation, σto assess the volatility of Adobe Inc. stock if mean return is 15.10% and standard deviation is 12%. What is the possible return of this stock one standard deviation from the mean if the return is normally distributed? (Note: expected return = mean return ± 1σ).


2. You want to usetotal market return approachto estimate the rate of return on another stock which Jeff wants to consider for the investment portfolio. The stock is selling for $25 and pays a dividend of $2 per share during the year. You think that because of profitable capital investment that the company is undertaken, its stock price will appreciate to $35 per share by the end of next year.


3. Calculate thedividend yield.
   


4. Calculate the percentagecapital gainof this stock.


5. What is the expected total return of this stock?


6. You are looking at sources of risk for the investment portfolio and came acrosssystematic riskandunsystematic riskin a financial journal. The systematic risk is defined as any risk that affects the whole economy or large number of assets to a greater or lesser degree. And unsystematic risk is a risk that affects specific assets or small group of assets.


7. List two examples each ofsystematic riskandunsystematic risk.
   


8. Jeff wants you to estimate theweighted average cost of capital(WACC) for Verizon LLC. The IRR computed on a capital project for Verizon is 12%. Jeff wants to see if it will be a good investment. He thinks that if IRR > WACC then it will be a good investment to consider. The market values for Verizon’s debt and equity are $40 million and $60 million respectively. The total value of the firm is $100 million, implying that the weight of debt is 40% ($40 million /$100 million) whereas the weight of equity is 60% ($60 million /$100 million).

a. Estimate WACC for Verizon if the cost of equity is 14.40% and after-tax cost of debt is 3.95%.