Module I: Investment Banking: Capital Structure and Valuation

1. Module I: Investment Banking:Capital Structure and Valuation Week 3 – September 11, 2002

2. Introduction • When a firm issues both debt and equity, it agrees to split the cash flows produced by its real assets between shareholders and bondholders. The firm’s mix of securities is known as its capital structure. • Firm value depends on capital structure in a fundamental way. This lecture reviews the theory of capital structure and its links to valuation.

3. Value and Leverage Strategy Conservative Strategy Aggressive Strategy Debt Debt Equity Equity

4. Distribution of Corporate Income E B I T EAC (Div + Retained Earnings) I (Fixed Claims) T (No Value to Investors)

5. Empirical Facts • Most corporations set a target debt ratio. • There are many similarities in capital structure • Across firms in the same industry • Across industries in different countries • These regularities suggest that there are some fundamental determinants of capital structure

6. Capital Structure Theory

7. Summary M-M Debate Issues

8. An Example • Consider the following data for a company reviewing its capital structure. • Number of Shares 100 • Price Per Share $20 • Market Value of Shares $2,000 • Market Value of Debt $0 • Interest Rate 10% • Tax Rate 0

9. Possible Outcomes: • Depending on the state of the economy, EBIT may be as predicted, below average or above average. • If EBIT is $250, as predicted, earnings per share are $250/100 = $2.50 and the return on equity is $2.50/$20 = 0.125 or 12.5 percent.

10. EBIT-EPS Table Based on the hypothetical EBITs, we can compute the associated EPS. This gives rise to the EBIT-EPS table or chart.

11. EBIT-EPS Chart

12. Desirability of Leverage • Suppose the company repurchases $1,000 of equity at $20 each • The purchase is financed by issuing consol bonds. • The new capital structure consists of 50 shares of stock and $1,000 of debt.

13. Hypothetical Outcomes: Levered Firm

14. EBIT-EPS Chart

15. The Home-made Leverage • Consider an alternative scenario now • Suppose an investor were to borrow $20 and invest $40 in two (unlevered) shares of the original all equity company. • The net cost to the investor is $20.

16. Home Made Leverage

17. Home Made Leverage • The returns from this strategy are exactly the same as buying 1 share of the levered firm. Therefore a share in the levered firm must sell for $20 (= 2 x 20 - 20). • Investors on their own can accomplish what the company can do by adding debt, so leverage will not create value. This leads to the famous irrelevance proposition of Merton Miller and Franco Modigliani.

18. Miller-Modigliani Theory • The Miller-Modigliani Proposition I: With no taxes and perfect financial markets, the value of any firm is independent of its capital structure.

19. Miller-Modigliani Theory: Firm Value Firm Value Leverage has no effect on firm value when there are no taxes and markets are perfect All Equity Firm Value Leverage Ratio

20. With no taxes and perfect markets, the weighted average cost of capital is constant % Cost of Equity WACC Cost of Debt Leverage Ratio Miller-Modigliani Theory: WACC

21. Implications • The Miller-Modigliani theorem is a starting point to examining capital structure effects in the real world. • If capital structure matters, it is because one of the MM assumptions is violated. • The first assumption to relax is the assumption that there are no corporate taxes.

22. Miller-Modigliani Theory and Taxes • As a simple example, consider two firms, U and L. • Firm U has no debt and firm L has issued consol bonds worth $200 at the current interest rate of 10 percent; otherwise the firms are the same.

23. Levered and Unlevered Firms

24. Implications • This simple example shows that interest tax deductibility increases the value of the firm that is levered. • The tax bill of L is $6.80 less than that of U • In effect, the government is paying 34 percent of the interest expense of L. This perpetual reduction in taxes is worth $6.80/0.10 = $68.

25. Value of the Interest Tax Shield • The present value of the tax shield accounts for the difference in firm value. • If tC is the corporate tax rate and rD the debt rate, then interest payments = rD.D and the tax shield is tC.rD.D. • How do we value the tax shields with risk? The most common approach is that the risk of the tax shields is the same as the interest payments generating them.

26. A Convenient Formula • For perpetual debt, we have: PV tax shield = (tC.rD.D)/rD = tC.D which is independent of rD. • The MM Theorem with corporate taxes implies: VL = VU + tCD. • The PV of tax shields is lowered if the firm does not borrow permanently or if it may not be able to use the tax shields in the future.

27. A Paradox • The Miller-Modigliani theorem implies capital structure is irrelevant if there are no taxes and capital markets are perfect. • Relaxing the assumption of no corporate taxes leads to the result that the company should take on as much debt as it can. • But an all debt company is owned by its creditors. What stops a company from being entirely debt financed?

28. Miller-Modigliani Theory with Corporate Taxes Firm Value Value of a Levered Firm Present value of the tax shield All Equity Firm Value Leverage Ratio

29. MM With Taxes: WACC With taxes, the weighted average cost of capital declines with higher leverage Cost of Equity % WACC Cost of Debt Leverage Ratio

30. A Reconciliation • What offsets the tax advantages of debt financing? • Bankruptcy costs • But empirical evidence seems to suggest these direct costs are quite small • Costs of financial distress • These costs may be sufficiently large as debt increases that there it offsets the tax shield.

31. MM with Taxes and COFD Optimal Leverage Zone Balances Tax Advantages of Debt Against the Costs of Financial Distress Firm Value All Equity Firm Value Leverage Ratio

32. MM with Taxes and COFD: WACC The weighted average cost of capital declines with higher leverage and then rises Cost of Equity % WACC Cost of Debt Leverage Ratio

33. Real-World Capital Structure • Some stylized facts fit well with the theory • Firms with high taxes rely more on debt • Firms with a high percentage of intangible assets rely on equity • Firms with uncertain operating income avoid debt

34. Valuation and Leverage:Some Common Mistakes

35. Cost of Capital for All Equity Firm? • Many - including some executives - believe it is zero because • there is no direct cost to internal funds or from equity capital issued some time ago • no obligation to pay a dividend. • This reasoning is wrong.

36. Cost of Capital for All Equity Firm? • It is the opportunity cost of the equity that matters. • The cost of capital is simply the rate that investors use discount the cash flows from the firm. Investors will price the stock to offer this expected return. If CAPM holds we have :

37. Cost of Capital for All-Debt Financed Projects • Many firms issue either debt or equity to finance purchases of new assets and projects. What is the cost of capital for a project financed 100% with debt? • It is not the after-tax debt rate. Why? • You cannot 100% debt-finance all projects • Debt capacity comes from existing assets - not all the tax shield is attributable to the project

38. Review • The capital structure decision is a crucial one for the firm and is fundamentally linked to questions of valuation • Firms trade-off the tax benefits of debt financing against the costs of financial distress • Finding the right capital structure is difficult in practice

39. Next Week – September 16 & 18 • Review background readings on valuation implications of mergers and acquisitions • Read and discuss The Hostile Bid for Red October case with your group next week • Allocate tasks associated with group write-up and do necessary work • Hand in case write-up at the beginning of class on September 23, 2002 and keep copies for class discussion