Corporate finance

Chapter 1

  • Sole proprietorship– ran and owned by one person, all is their asset and don’t share business decisions, least regulated, taxed once as personal income

    • Disadvantages- 1 person with all liabilities, capital limited to personal wealth

  • Partnership- ran by 2 people and people have general liabilities, more capital available, taxed once as personal income

    • Disadvantages- unlimited liability, dissolves with death, limited partnership

  • Corporation- legal person is distinct from owners, limited liability, easier to raise capital, transfer ownership is easy

    • Disadvantages- double taxation(income tax and dividends)

  • Limited liability company– hybrid business form of partnership and corporation, taked only as personal profit

  • Subchapter corp– taxed individually, subject to IRS restriction on type and number of owners

  • C-corp– taxed corporate tax rate, larger than S corp

  • Goal of financial management is to maximize the current value per share of company’s existing stock

  • Stakeholders- owners, employees, clients, suppliers, etc

  • All shareholders are stakeholders, but not all stakeholders are shareholders.

  • Securities– bonds, stocks, etc

  • Corporate governance mechanism: shareholder → board of directors → top management

  • Sarbanes Oxley act: driven by corporate scandals to strengthen protection against fraud and malpractice


Chapter 2

  • Balance sheet- snapshot of firm’s assets and liabilities at a point in time. 

    • Assets on left in order of decreasing liquidity

    • liabilities/ owner’s equity on right in order of when due to be paid 

  • Net working capital is positive for a healthy firm

  • Book value– balance sheet value of the assets, liabilities, and equity

  • Market value- true value, price which assets, liabilities, or equities can actually be bought or sold

  • Income statements- measures performance over specific period of time 

    • Report revenues first then deduct expenses

Net sales

  • COGS

  • Depreciation 

= earnings before int and tax

  • Interest pd

= taxable income

  • tax

= Net income

  • dividends

Add to retained earnings



  • GAAP matching principle– recognize revenue when fully earned- match expenses required to generate revenue to the period of recognition

  • Noncash items– expenses that don’t affect cash flow (depreciation and deferred taxes)

  • Marginal percent– tax paid on next dollar earned

  • Average tax rate- total tax paid / taxable income

  • Operating cash flow- CF that results from daily operation

  • Net capital spending- CF spent/ invested in fixed assets

  • Change in net working capital- net CF invested in working capital


Chapter 3

  • Common size balance sheet- all accounts = percentage of total assets

  • Common size income statement– all line items = percent of sales or revenue

  • Standardized statements are useful to compare financial info year to year

    • Comparing companies of different sizes in same industry

    • Know what happened to every dollar

  • Inventory is least liquid of all assets held

  • An increase in the capital intensity ratio is not good (compare with the industry though)

  • Profit margin measures the firm’s operating efficiency

  • Total asset turnover measures firm's asset use efficiency

  • Increase in the equity multiplier means can use assets more efficiently

  • If market to book ratio is too high then the business is overpriced

  • Enterprise value- tells us market value of all assets, how much you’ll spend to get not liquid assets

  • P/E ratio– want low bc shows price/$1 earned

  • EV/EBITDA want low ratio amount

  • Internal growth rate– how much a firm can grow without external funding

  • Sustainable growth rate- how much a firm can grow using only debt financing but keeping the same capital structure. Has to keep same D/E ratio

  • Determinants of growth

    • Profit margin- operating efficiency

    • Total asset turnover- asset use efficiency

    • Financial leverage- choice of optimal debt ratio

    • Dividend policy- choice of how much to pay to shareholders vs reinvesting in the firm


Chapter 4

  • Time vlaue of money- equivalent relationship between CF occurring on diff points of time

    • Factors: inflation, time of investment, principle amnt, #periods, and interest rate

  • PV= present value– current value of future CF discounted at appropriate discount rate

  • FV= future value– amnt an investment is worth after 1+ periods of time

  • Interest rate- r- can be called discount rate, cost of capital, required return, opportunity cost of capital– terminology depends on usage

  • Simple interest- interest earned on original principle =PRT

  • compound interest- interest earned on principle and on interest received = ((Px(1+i)^t)-P

  • Why is money worth less than face value– opportunity cost, risk, and uncertainty

  • Discounting- finding PV of 1+ future payments

    • Finding PVs is discounting and reverse of compounding


Chapter 5

  • Annuity- finite series equal CF that occur at regular intervals.

    • ordinary annuity– CF at end of period (assume this one if not specified)

    • Annuity due– CF occurs at beginning of period (if calculating this change calculator to beginning)

  • Perpetuity- infinite series equal payments

  • Higher discount rate = lower PV over time

  • Annual percentage rate– nominal - annual raate quoted by law

    • For APR multiple I/Y x 12 to get annual

  • Effective annual rate- interest rate expressed as if it were compounded 1x per year. 

    • Used to compare 2 alternative investments with different compounding periods


Chapter 6

  • Bond- debt contract, interest only loan

  • Coupon rate- how you pay interest

  • Par value is repaid at maturity

  • Coupon interest rate is YTM (multiply % x par to get pmt)

    • YTM= market required rate of return for bonds of similar risk and maturity

    • Discount rate used to value a bond, return if bond held to maturity

    • Usually coupon rate at issue

  • As interest increases, PV decreases

  • As interest decreases bond price increases

  • If PV is less than 1000 then discount bond

    • Greater then premium bond

  • Coupon rate= YTM then price= par

  • Coupon rate < YTM then price < par

  • Interest rate risk= risk raised for bond holders from fluctuating interest rate

  • Bond price sensitivity- change in price (bond value) due to changes in maket interest rates

  • Maturit: long term bonds= high price risk

  • Coupon size: low coupon rate= high price risk

  • Reinvestment risk: uncertainty concerning market interest rates at which CF can be reinvested.

  • Reinvestment: long term bonds=low reinvestment rate risk

    • Low coupon rate bonds= low reinvestment risk

  • Lower coupon rate on bond, risk is greater (greater price sensitivity)

  • Bond of indenture: deed of trust: contract between issuing company and bondholders include:

    • Basic terms of bonds, total amnt bonds issued, secured (has collateral) vs unsecured, sinking fund provisions, call provision (call premium/ deferred call), details of protective covenants

  • Mortgage- secured by real property

  • Debentures- unsecured bonds for which no specific pledge of property is made– risky

  • Treasury securities- federal government debt

    • Tbills- pure discount bonds, maturity 1 year or less– greater price risk

    • Treasury notes- coupon debt, maturity 1-10 years

    • treasury bonds– coupon debt, maturity >10 years

  • Zero coupon bonds- no periodic interest pmts, entire YTM from difference between purchase price and par (capital gains), and can’t sell for more than par

  • Floating rate bonds- coupon rate no longer fixed

  • Bond ratings-

    • High rating- Moody’s Aaa and S&P’s AAA- capacity to pay is strong

    • Very Low grade- C - income bonds with no interest paid

      • D is in default with principal and interest in arrears 

  •  Nominal rate of interest (R ) - change in purchase power and inflation, quoted rate of interest

  • Real rate of interest- (r ) change in purchasing power only

  • Fisher effect- defines relationship between real rates, nominal rates, and inflation

    • R=nominal, r= real, h= expected inflation rates

  • Equity- ownership interest, common stockholders vote to elect board of directors and on other issues, dividends are NOT tax deductible, dividend not a liability of firm until declared, stockholders have no legal recourse in div not declared, an all equity firm can’t go bankrupt

  • Call price increases  when interest rates decrease

  • Bellwether bond- gov bond whose changes in interest rates are believed to show the future direction of the rest of the bond market


Chapter 7

  • Stockholders get cash either from company paying dividends (cash income) to selling their shares (capital gains)

  • Estimate future dividend payments

    • Constant div/zero growth– pay constant div forever, like preferred stock, compute w perpetuity formula

    • Constant div growth- firm will inc dividend by constant % every period

    • Supernormal growth- div growth not consistent initially but settles down to constant growth eventually

  • Gordon growth model- div and stock prices grow at g forever, div yield is constant, capital gains yield is constant and equal, total return (R ) must be >g

  • Stock price sensitivity to dividend growth increases exponentially– price sensitive to dividend growth

  • As dividend growth increases, price of stock increases

  • Required rate increases, price of stock decreases

  • Nonconstant CF- when div don’t grow at the same rate 

  • Valuation using multiples- for stocks that don’t pay dividends– value them using the price-earnings ratio and/or price-sales ratio

  • Price sales ratio useful when earnings are negative

  • Dividend characteristics- not a liability of firm until declared by board of directors

    • Can’t go bankrupt from not declaring

    • Not tax deductible

  • Common stock features

    • Voting rights- common shareholders elect directors and control firm

    • Cumulative voting- directors elected together and number of votes is shares x directors

    • Straight voting- directors elected individually and number of votes equals number of shares

    • Proxy voting- grant authority by shareholder to someone else to vote with shareholders vote

  • Dividend is not a liability until declared by board of directors

  • Features of preferred stock– div pd before div is paid to common stockholders

    • Can defer indefinitely 

    • Cumulative or noncomulative–

      • Cumulative- carried forward as arrearage and missed pref div pd before common div is paid

      • Noncumulative- holders forgo unpaid div, compensated with voting rights

  • Primary market- new issue market

  • Secondary- existing shares traded among investors

  • Dealers- maintain inventory, ready to buy/sell 

  • Broker- brings buyers and sellers together

  • NYSE- members buy a trading license (own a seat)

    • One assigned broker/dealer per stock- trade occurs at DMM’s post

  • NASDAQ- multiple market makers

    • Electronic

  • Bid-ask spread— provides income amount


Chapter 10

  • Risk– return trade off– lesson from capital market history

    • Increase in reward, increase risk

  • Total percent return - return on an investment measured as percent of original investment

  • % return = $ return/ $ invested

  • Large cap stock– based on S&P 500 index, contains 500 largest US companies, in terms of market capitalization

    • Small cpa stocks- smallest 20% of companies listed in NYSE, measured by market capitalization

  • Risk free rate– rate returns on riskless investments (T-bills)

  • Risk premium– excess return on risky asset over risk free rate- reward for bearing risk

  • Liquidity risk- may sell with significant risk

  • Risk measured by dispersion, spread, and volatility

  • Normal distribution– symmetric frequency distribution– used for asset return analysis

  • Arithmetic average– return earned in average period over multiple periods

    • Answers the question what was your return in an average year over a particular period

    • okay for independent events

  • Geometric average- weighted return: average compound return/ period over multiple periods

    • Answers the question: what was average compound return/ year over particular period

  • Market value/ price– price which asset can be currently bought or sold

  • intrinsic/fundamental/fair value– value placed on an asset by investors if they had a complete understanding of asset’s investment characteristics

  • Form of market efficiency– 

    • Strong form- public/private info, inside info of little use, price reflect all info, if true investment can’t earn abnormal returns. Evidence shows markets aren’t strong

    • Semistrong form efficient market– info is publicly available. If true investments can’t earn abnormal returns by trading on public info 

    • Weak form efficient market– info is past price. If true inv can’t earn ab returns by trade on market info from past— most common for markets


Chapter 11

  • Variance and std deviation– measure volatility of returns

    • Variance is the weighted average squared deviations

  • Portfolio– collection of assets

    • Asset risk and return impact how stock affects risk and return of portfolio

  • Risk-return tradeoff for portfolio measured by expected return and std dev

  • portfolio return– weighted average of returns of component securities

  • P= -1 means perfectly negatively correlated

  • Principle of diversification– can decrease risk without an equivalent reduction in expected returns– decreases variability

  • Systematic risk– minimum level risk that diversity can’t fix, can’t diversify against systematic risk

    • No reward for bearing risk unnecessarily 

  • Unsystematic risk– diversifiable, risk factors affect limited number of assets

  • As stock number increases, each new stock has smaller risk which reduces impact on portfolio

  • Well diverse portfolio eliminates ½ the risk

  • Investment compensated for diversifying portfolio depends on individual risk level/ limits 

  • Beta coefficient– give idea how volatile a security/asset is relative to market

    • >1 asset is riskier than market average

    • =1 average risk

    • =0 when correlation coefficient of assets returns with market (rho)=0 or std dev on asset’s returns=0

  • As beta increases, risk premium increases for reward vs risk to stay in equilibrium

  • Numerator of risk-reward ratio is on the y-axis and denominator is on x-axis 

  • CAPM defines relationship between risk and return

  • Rf= pure time value of money

  • RPm = measures reward for bearing systematic risk (E(Rm)-Rf)

  • Bj = measures systematic risk

  • If point is over SML like then it is underpriced

  • Is Po is overvalued then then RoR decreases


Chapter 8

  • Capital budgeting– used to access long term, significant amount investment, strategic business decisions

  • Payback period- how long does it take to recover initial cost of project– accept if period is less than some preset limit

  • Net present value: difference between cost and final product. Value created today from undertaking an investment

    • >0 project expected to add value to firm, will increase wealth of owners– direct measurement of how well project will meet goal of increasing shareholder wealth

    • =0 – accept if only job offer/ first time business does something (indifferent)

    •  <0 do not accept

    • As I increases, NPV decreases

  • IRR is discount rate that makes NPV=0 (hurdle rate)

    • IRR decision rule– IRR>required RoR, then accept because +NPV

    • IRR– most important alternative to NPV, widely used in practice and intuitively appealing, based only on estimated CF, independent of interest rates

  • NPV profile– crossing over x axis gives IRR (where NPV=0)

  • Unconventional CF– signs CF change more than 1x 

    • Accept between 2 IRR → positive NPV and RoR between 2 IRR

  • Independent project– CF of one are unaffected by the other

    • Mutually exclusive- CF of one can be adversely impacted by acceptance of other

    • Choose project based on highest NPV

  • NPV profiles cross because of: 

    • size difference - small projects free up funds sooner for investment 

      • High opportunity cost more valuable funds so increase discount rate, favors small projects

    • timing difference- project with faster payback period provides more CF in early years for reinvestment 

      • High discount rate favors early CF

  • Accept project if Ror is between 2 IRR

  • Conflicts between NPV and IRR– NPV measure increase in value to firm, conflict between NPV and another decision use NPV, IRR unreliable if non-conventional CF or mutually exclusive

  • Profitability index– inc discount rate, decrease PI

    • Closely related to NPV (considers CF and TVM), easy to understand and communicate, useful in capital rationing.


Chapter 9

  • Relevant CF–include only CF that will occur if project is accepted

  • Stand alone principle–allow us to analyze each project in isolation from the firm

    • Focusing only on incremental CF

      • Corp CF with and without project– view it as a mini firm

  • Sunk costs– any cost that has already been payed– won’t change based on if project is rejected or accepted. (not relevant CF)

  • Opportunity cost– next best thing you could do if you chose NOT to do a project. Should be included as a cost of project

  • Side effects/ erosion– if sales from new project either increase or decrease sales/costs in one of existing product lines

    • cost/benefits included as CF in new project analysis

  • Net working capital– sometimes new project requires investment in new working capital

    • Cost incurred at start of project t=0 and recovered at the end 

  • Financing cost– any cost with financing are excluded from project analysis. (not relevant CF)

  • Tax effects– depreciation isn’t a CF itself but impacts taxes paid therefore must include the tax shield of depreciation as a CF but not depreciation itself

  • Pro forma statement and CF– projects future operations

sales

  • Variable cost

= gross profit

  • Fixed costs

  • depreciation

= EBIT

  • taxes

= NI

  • NFA declines by amount of depreciation each year– book or accounting value, not market value 

  • OCF= (sales-costs)(1-Tc)+ dep(Tc)

    • Use this when major incremental CF are the purchase of equipment and associated depreciation tax shield

  • GAAP requirement– sales recorded when made not when cash is received

    • COGS recorded when corresponding sales made, whether suppliers are paid or not 

    • Buy inventory/materials to support sales before any cash is collected

  • Modified cost recovery system– depreciation →0,  recovery period= class life, ½ year convention, multiply % in table by initial cost

  • After tax salvage– if salvage value is different than bv, then there is a tax effect… value you can recover from assets

    • If you sell assets above bv, pay taxes on the gain. If loss there will be a tax shield

  • NPV estimates are only point estimates

  • Forecasting risk– sensitivity of NPV to changes to CF estimates, more sensitive= greater forecasting risk

  • Scenario analysis– examines best, worst, and base case scenarios

    • Considers few possibilities, assume perfectly correlated, focus on stand alone risk

  • Sensitivity analysis– show how changes in input variable affect NPV or IRR (change one variable at a time)

  • As units decrease, NPV will decrease

  • Managerial options: contingency planning– option to expand, wait, or abandon and strategic options

  • Capital rationing– occurs when firm or division has limited resources

    • Soft rationing– limited resources are temporary/ self imposed (PI used for this)

    • Hard rationing– capital never available for project


Chapter 12

  • RoR is same as appropriate discount rate

  • Cost to a firm for capital funding = return to providers of those funds

  • Cost of capital– usually composed of average of 3 sources– common stock eq, preferred stock, and debt (in order of high to low risk)

  • RoR can also be called cost of equity

    • RoR required by equity investors given risk of CF from firm

  • Dividend growth model– advantage: easy to understand 

    • Disadvantage: only use for companies currently paying dividends, not used if div aren't growing  at reasonably constant rate, doesn’t consider risk really, and sensitive to est growth rate

  • SML– explicitly adjusts for systematic risk and applicable to all companies

    • Disadvantage– must est expect market risk premium, est beta which varies, and rely on past to predict future

  • Cost preferred stock– pref div pays constant div every period, div expected to be pd forever, pref stock is perpetuity

  • Cost of debt– required return on company’s dividend

    • Method 1: compute yield to maturity on existing debt

    • Method 2: use estimates of current rates based on bond rating expected on new debt

      • Current cost of debt is not coupon rate

      • Use if firm doesn’t have existing bond debt

    • Can be estimated by looking at rates of similar bonds by rating

  • Interest is tax deductible so use R-R(1-Tc)

  • After tax cost is more relevant bc its actual cost to company

  • Weighted average of capital: use individual costs of capital to compete weighted average cost of capital for firms.

  • weights= % of firm that will be financed by each component– use target weights if possible (use market weights if not)

  • Common stock is riskier that preferred stock

  • WACC– riskier= higher WACC

    • WACC reflects risk of average project by a firm

    • Different projects/ divisions have different risk