Corporate Flashcards
Explain how investor preferences for dividends, capital gains, or share repurchase are influenced by tax rates.
Evaluate a takeover bid.
Describe characteristics of M&A transactions that create value.
Provide a general analysis of dividend safety.
Dividends of companies that have a record of stable or increasing dividends are considered safer.
Small, young companies generally do not pay dividends, preferring to reinvest internally for growth. However, as such companies grow, they typically initiate dividends and their payout ratios tend to increase over time. Large, mature companies typically target a payout ratio of 40% to 60%.
Explain the poison put and supermajority pre-offer takeover defense mechanisms.
Classify merger and acquisition (M&A) activities based on relatedness of business activities.
Explain the synergies rationale behind M&A activity.
Compare the effect of a share repurchase on earnings per share when 1) the repurchase is financed with the company’s surplus cash and 2) the company uses debt to finance the repurchase.
Explain the advantages and disadvantages of DCF analysis.
Merger-related synergies and cost structure changes inform cash flow projections. The model can be customized to reflect changes in assumptions and/or estimates.
Assumption changes drastically affect value calculation, and the assumptions are estimates at best sometimes.
Describe the motives for merger within the deceleration of growth and decline lifecycle stage.
Explain the difference between dispersed ownership and concentrated ownership.
Dispersed ownership reflects the existence of many shareholders, none of whom can individually exercise control over the corporation.
In contrast, concentrated ownership reflects an individual shareholder or a group (called controlling shareholders) with the ability to exercise control over the corporation.
List the factors that may explain the differences in capital structures across countries.
List the topics a board evaluation typically covers.
Calculate the yearly cash flows of expansion and replacement projects. (Note that salvage value components apply only to replacement projects.)
Define stranded assets.
Evaluate mutually exclusive projects with unequal lives using the least common multiple of lives approach.
Describe target capital structure and explain why a company’s actual capital structure may fluctuate around its target.
Describe why analysts should be sensitive to international differences in the use of financial leverage and factors that explain these differences.
Explain a golden parachute as a pre-offer takeover defense mechanism.
Explain other types of takeover defense mechanisms.
Explain the poison pill pre-offer takeover defense mechanism.
Identify the key attributes for consideration when evaluating a board’s structure.
Calculate and interpret the effective tax rate (ETR) on a given currency unit of corporate earnings (PTE) under a tax imputation system.
List the types of corporate shareholders that can have a significant influence on corporate governance.
Distinguish among the basic forms of restructuring.
Describe the tax argument.
Calculate the effect of a share repurchase on book value per share.
After accounting for the costs of financial distress, how is the value of the leveraged firm calculated?
Describe sensitivity analysis.
Sensitivity analysis determines the impact on NPV of changes in one input variable at a time holding all other input variables constant. This enables an analyst to identify the most significant variables in the analysis in terms of their effect on NPV, and their influence on the success/failure of the project.
Explain why dividend irrelevance does not apply in the real world.
Both companies and individuals incur transaction costs when trading shares.
Volatile stock prices can make it problematic to create homemade dividends.
Investors incur taxes on cash dividends.
Describe types of information (signals) that dividend initiations, increases, decreases, and omissions may convey.
Dividend policy changes may communicate new information about company prospects:
Initiations and increases may signal positive developments and confidence in the future. Such signals are hard to mimic for short-term gain because the company will not be able to continue high dividends in the future.
Decreases and omissions signal adverse developments and lack of confidence.
Describe how financial flexibility factors affect dividend policy.
Calculate the stable dividend (Lintner’s model).
Calculate the estimated postacquisition value.
Explain common reasons for restructuring.
Classify merger and acquisition (M&A) activities based on forms of integration and relatedness of business activities.
Describe assumptions underlying the Modigliani and Miller (MM) propositions regarding capital structure.
Homogeneous expectations regarding cash flows from an investment in bonds or stocks, and perfect capital markets where all market participants have the same information (investments with identical cash flow streams and risk must trade at the same price).
Borrowing/lending at the risk-free rate and no agency costs—shareholder interests rule.
Describe materiality in an ESG context and in overall financial reporting.
Describe the motives for merger within the stabilization and market maturity lifecycle stage.
Calculate and interpret the effective tax rate (ETR) on a given currency unit of corporate earnings under double taxation.
Describe the role of debt ratings in capital structure policy.
Increasing leverage may prompt a debt ratings downgrade. Lower ratings signify higher risk, and lead to higher required returns for both equity and debt holders, which make it more expensive for the company to raise capital going forward.
Describe the motives for merger within mature growth life-cycle stage.
Growth potential remains but competition moderates. Horizontal and vertical mergers are most common. Mergers attempt to achieve savings through operational efficiencies.
Describe the challenges of integrating ESG factors into investment analysis.
Describe dual-class shares.
Explain how price and payment method affect the distribution of risks and benefits in M&A transactions.
Compare theories of dividend policy and explain implications of each for share value given a description of a corporate dividend action.