Solved: HC2091 Business Finance
Purpose:
This assignment is designed to assess your level of knowledge of the key topics covered in this unit
Unit Learning Outcomes Assessed:
• Explain financial markets and different types of securities and the processes related to their investment;
• Interpret the impact of future developments in the financial markets on business structure and performance;
• Understand the concept of the time value of money and apply it in investment and portfolio evaluation and management;
• Critically understand and practice valuation of financial instruments, including ordinary shares, preferred shares and bonds;
• Critically analyze finance alternatives to manage short- and long-term debts;
• Evaluate the firm capital structure policy, dividend payout policy, and alternative funding policies and instruments available to businesses.
Description:
Each week students were provided with three tutorial questions of varying degrees of difficulty. The tutorial questions are available in the Black Board/ Tutorial Materials/Tutorial Questions for Final Assessment for each week. The Interactive Tutorials are designed to assist students with the process, skills and knowledge to answer the provided tutorial questions. Your task is to answer a selection of tutorial questions from week 3 to week 11 inclusive and submit these answers in a single document.
The questions to be answered are:
Question 1 (11 marks)
(This question is from the Week 4 Tutorial)
1. Your manager asked you to evaluate an investment opportunity. Select and explain two (2) investment criteria you will use to make a decision as to whether to accept or reject the opportunity. (2.5 x 2 = 5 marks)
2. You are the CFO of Midas Mining Ltd and the company is looking to expand its mining operations. Your staff have narrowed it down to two (2) projects, with the cash flows presented in the table below. However, given the substantial cash outlay, your company can only choose one of the projects (A or B).
| Information | Project A | Project B |
| Cost | $5 550 000 | $6 640 000 |
| Future Cash Flows Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 | 1 230 000 2 210 000 1 200 600 1 150 000 1 120 000 | 2 830 000 1 300 000 1 750 000 1 180 000 1 150 000 |
Required:
a) Perform a project evaluation, using the Net Present Value (NPV) method. The prevailing discount rate is 12%. (2.5 x 2 = 5 marks)
b) Identify which project (if any) should be accepted by Midas Mining Ltd. (1 mark)
Question 2 (11 marks)
(This question is from the Week 3 and Week 4 Tutorials)
Alice has $5 000 now. She wants to save $25 000 to buy her first car. She decides to put that $5 000 in an investment fund that pays an interest rate of 10% per annum (per year), compounding annually.
Required:
a) How long does Alice need to wait until she has saved $25 000? (2 marks)
b) If Alice wishes to have that $25 000 in five (5) years, how much does she need to put into the investment now with the same interest rate of 10%? (2 marks)
c) Assume that Alice was offered an alternative investment, which requires an initial investment of $6 000 for seven (7) years. Calculate the amount of money that Alice would accumulate after seven (7) years, if the rate of return is 12%, compounding quarterly. (2 marks)
d) Assume that Alice was offered two (2) other alternative investments in the securities market:
| i. | Option A pays an interest rate of 10% p.a. (per year), compounding semi annually. Option B pays an interest rate of 9.87%, compounding monthly. |
| ii. |
Which option (A or B) should Alice choose? (2 marks)
e) Assume that Alice has achieved her goal of $25 000 as a deposit and now she wants to purchase a car which costs $45 000. Her plan is to pay $25 000 in cash and finance the balance over three (3) years at an interest rate of 3.5%. What will be her monthly payment? (2 marks)
f) At the end of this year, Alice will receive a fixed income of $10,000 each year forever. If the required rate of return is 14%, what is the present value of this income flow? (1 mark)
Question 3 (7 marks)
(This question is from the Week 7 and Week 8 Tutorials)
MLC Fund Management is considering the following three (3) options for their new investment portfolio:
Option 1 – A non-callable corporate bond that pays a coupon rate of 8% annually. The bond will mature in 30 years. The yield-to-maturity (YTM) of the bond is 7.5% and the face value of the bond is $1 000.
Option 2 – An ordinary share which just paid a dividend of $6.00 with a constant dividend growth rate of 5% each year. The current market price of this share is $85.
Option 3 – A $100 par value preference-share which pays a fixed dividend of 6%. The required rate of return for the preference shares with the same risk is 8%.
Required:
a) How much should MLC pay for the corporate bond that pays the coupon annually? (1 mark) If the coupon is paid quarterly, what is the new bond value? (1 mark)
b) Calculate the market required rate of return for the ordinary share. (1 marks)
c) Compute the value of the preference share. (1 mark)
d) Explain why a preference share is considered a hybrid between an equity and a debt instrument. (3 marks)
Question 4 (7 marks)
(This question is from the Week 9 Tutorial)
Marcus has an investment portfolio that paid the rate of return of 24.75%, -11%, – 30%, 19%, 15.5%, 12% and 20% over the last seven (7) years.
Required:
a) Calculate the arithmetic average return and the geometric average return of this portfolio. (2 marks)
b) Discuss the difference between arithmetic average return and the geometric average return. When should Marcus use a specific average return? (2 marks)
c) If the following information is available for Marcus’s portfolio in the forecast for next year, calculate the expected return and identify the risk of return by computing the variance and the standard deviation. (3 marks)
| State of economy | Probability of the economic state | Rate of Return |
| Boom | 0.55 | 25% |
| Normal | 0.30 | 17% |
| Recession | 0.15 | -8% |
Question 5 (7 marks)
(This question is from the Week 10 Tutorial)
Osborne Construction currently has the following capital structure:
Debt: $20,500,000 paying 9.5% coupon bonds outstanding with 15 years to maturity, an annual before-tax yield to maturity of 8% on a new issue. The bonds currently sell for $1,125 per $1,000 face value.
Ordinary Shares: 100,000 shares outstanding currently selling for $45 per share. The company just paid a $3.50 dividend per share and is experiencing a 5% growth rate in dividends, which it expects to continue indefinitely.
(Note: The firm’s marginal tax rate is 30%.)
Required:
a) Calculate the current total market value of the company. (1.5 marks)
b) Calculate the capital structure of the company. (1 marks)
c) Calculate the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for the firm. (1.5 marks)
d) Discuss the significance of calculating WACC for this company. (3 marks)
Question 6 (7 marks)
(This question is from the Week 11 Tutorial)
The following data is available for Quick Serve Trading Ltd.
| Account | Beginning balance | Ending Balance |
| Accounts payable | 120,300 | 124,400 |
| Inventory | 160,600 | 167,200 |
| Long term debts | 327,500 | 325,800 |
| Common stock | 400,400 | 415,900 |
| Accounts receivable | 123,400 | 122,300 |
| Total revenue | 737,000 | |
| Total cost of sales | 265,000 |
(Note – Assume that all sales are on credit)
Required:
a) Calculate the operating cycle (2.5 marks) and the cash cycle (2.5 marks)
b) Interpret and explain the outcomes (2 marks)
Submission Directions:
The assignment will be submitted via Blackboard. Each student will be permitted only ONE submission to Blackboard. You need to ensure that the document submitted is the correct one.
Academic Integrity
Holmes Institute is committed to ensuring and upholding Academic Integrity, as Academic Integrity is integral to maintaining academic quality and the reputation of Holmes’ graduates. Accordingly, all assessment tasks need to comply with academic integrity guidelines. Table 1 identifies the six categories of Academic Integrity breaches. If you have any questions about Academic Integrity issues related to your assessment tasks, please consult your lecturer or tutor for relevant referencing guidelines and support resources.
Many of these resources can also be found through the Study Skills link on Blackboard.
Academic Integrity breaches are a serious offence punishable by penalties that may range from deduction of marks, failure of the assessment task or unit involved, suspension of course enrolment, or cancellation of course enrolment.
Table 1: Six Categories of Academic Integrity Breaches
| Plagiarism | Reproducing the work of someone else without attribution. When a student submits their own work on multiple occasions this is known as self-plagiarism. |
| Collusion | Working with one or more other individuals to complete an assignment, in a way that is not authorised. |
| Copying | Reproducing and submitting the work of another student, with or without their knowledge. If a student fails to take reasonable precautions to prevent their own original work from being copied, this may also be considered an offence. |
| Impersonation | Falsely presenting oneself, or engaging someone else to present as oneself, in an in-person examination. |
| Contract cheating | Contracting a third party to complete an assessment task, generally in exchange for money or other manner of payment. |
| Data fabrication and falsification | Manipulating or inventing data with the intent of supporting false conclusions, including manipulating images. |
Source: INQAAHE, 2020
If any words or ideas used the assignment submission do not represent your original words or ideas, you must cite all relevant sources and make clear the extent to which such sources were used.
In addition, written assignments that are similar or identical to those of another student is also a violation of the Holmes Institute’s Academic Conduct and Integrity policy. The consequence for a violation of this policy can incur a range of penalties varying from a 50% penalty through suspension of enrolment. The penalty would be dependent on the
extent of academic misconduct and your history of academic misconduct issues. All assessments will be automatically submitted to Safe – Assign to assess their originality.
Further Information:
For further information and additional learning resources please refer to your Discussion Board for the unit.