FI 8320, Summer 2003
Cases and Readings in Corporate Finance
Instructor
Professor David C. Nachman
Office: RCB 1239
Phone: 651-1696
email:
Office Hours: M W, 10:00 – 12:00 A. M., or by appointment
Prerequisites
FI 8000
CSP: 1, 2, 6
Course Description
This course focuses on financial policy-making through case analyses, contemporary readings from the professional literature, and problem solving. The emphasis in the course is on investment and financing decisions and their impact on firm value and on capital market imperfections and their impact on the raising of corporate capital. The course also provides an opportunity for the study of additional topics of special current significance such as capital structure and dividend policy, corporate restructuring and the market for corporate control, real options, risk management, international capital budgeting and financing, financial planning and working capital management, project financing, reorganizations and advanced equity valuation.
Course Material
Required text material
• (BM) R. A. Brealey and S. C. Myers, Principles of Corporate Finance, 7th ed., McGraw- Hill/Irwin, Inc., 2003.
• (MG) M. Griffiths, Solutions Manual to Principles of Corporate Finance, McGraw- Hill/Irwin, Inc., 2003.
• (H) C. W. Holden, Spreadsheet Modeling in Corporate Finance, Prentice Hall, 2002.
•(RP) Reading Packet
•(CP) Case Packet
The required texts (BM) and (H) and the materials that make up the Case Packet (CP) are available at the GSU Book Store, as is the supplement (MG). The Reading Packet (RP) is available at DocuWeb. Contents of (CP) and (RP) (with DocuWeb access instructions) follow at the end of this syllabus.
The CD-ROM that comes with your text has the Financial Tutor Series with three modules, PowerPoint presentations for the text, Financial Analysis Spreadsheet Templates (F.A.S.T.) tied to specific problems in the text, video clips and Web links that make using this text easier and more fun. The website for this text is www.mhhe.com/bm7e and has in addition chapter summaries with news, articles, links and PowerPoint slides for each chapter and some selected advanced topics.
Course Work and Grades
A topic outline with reading and case assignments follows. Each assignment should be done before the class for which it is scheduled and students should be prepared to answer questions and to partake in discussion in class on this material. Classes will be a mixture of lecture and discussion and problem solving.
The course is in the process of being put on the web. Many lecture notes and spreadsheets are available at my web site at http://www.gsu.edu/~fncdcn/website/index.htm, under Teaching, Cases and Readings in Corporate Finance. Make a copy of each and bring them to each class. I will try to alert you ahead of time when each will be covered.
Case Assignments. There are five cases assigned. These appear in boldface on the topic outline that follows. You must prepare each assignment before the class for which it is scheduled. Each assignment will be handed in for grading at the beginning of the class for which it is scheduled, so make a copy for class discussion and for your records. NO late work will be accepted.
Your solution to these assignments will be an individual effort. The case report consists of answering a list of questions pertaining to the case. The list of questions for each assignment follows at the end of this syllabus. The report must be typewritten, double-spaced, with one inch margins top, bottom, and sides. Please use a binder clip to secure your report. I must be able to see and read your work. Reports in improper format or improper use of the English language will be penalized severely. NO handwritten work will be accepted.
The case assignments require use of spreadsheets. The assignments in the text (H) are made to facilitate the case assignments. In addition, spreadsheet modeling is the language of finance in practice. The better you are at it the more valuable you will be to employers. The text (H) should be a great resource in this regard.
Exams. There will be two exams, a midterm exam (ME), and a final exam (FE). These exams will be multiple choice questions with a mix of verbal and problem type questions. (ME) This is an open book, open note exam based on the material covered prior to it. (ME) is scheduled for class 7, Monday, June 30, 2003. NO makeup exam will be given. (FE) This is an open book, open note exam based on all the material covered in the course. According to the Final Exam Schedule for Summer 2003, (FE) will be at 7:15 P. M., Wednesday, July 30, 2003. NO makeup exam will be given.
Course Grade. A student's grade will be determined from a weighted average of scores on the exams and the case assignments using the following weighting schemes:
Scheme I Scheme II
(FE) (ME) (FE) > (ME)
Case
Assignments 40* 40*
(ME) 25 20
(FE) 35 40
*Each case score counts eight percent for a total of forty percent.
Topic Outline and Reading/Case Assignments**
Class Day/Date Topic/Assignments.
1 M 6/9 Review and overview of financial management. (BM) Chapters 1-4.
2 W 6/11 Net present value and other criteria. (BM) Chapter 5. (H) Chapter 3. Relevant
cash flows. (BM) Chapter 6, Sections 6.1 - 6.3.
3 M 6/16 (CP) Case: Diamond Chemicals PLC. (A): The Merseyside Project. (BM)
Chapter 11. (RP) “Corporate Strategy and the Capital Budgeting Decision,” Shapiro.
4 W 6/18 Real Options. (RP) Class Notes I – V. (H) Chapters 17, 18. (BM) Chapter 20-22.
(H) Chapter 20.
5 M 6/23 Continued. (RP) Class Notes VI. “Valuing Managerial Flexibility,” Trigeorgis and Mason, “To Wait or Not to Wait,” Corman, “Getting Real,” Mintz, “Real Options
in the Digital Economy.” Kulatilaka and Venkatraman., “Exploiting Uncertainty,”
Coy.
6 W 6/25 (CP) Case: Diamond Chemicals PLC. (B): Merseyside and Rotterdam
Projects. Capital Structure. (BM) Chapters 13-16.
7 M 6/30 (ME) Midterm Exam.
8 W 7/2 Midpoint of grading period. Capital Structure continued. (BM) Chapter 17, 18.
Circular File lecture note at website.
9 M 7/7 (BM) Chapter 19. (RP) “Using APV: A Better Tool for Valuing Operations,”
Luehrman. (CP) Note on Adjusted Present Value. (H) Chapter 13.
10 W 7/9 (CP) Case: MW Petroleum Corporation (A). (RP) “How Financial Engineering
Can Advance Corporate Strategy,” Tufano.
11 M 7/14 (BM) Chapter 27. (RP) Class Notes VII.
12 W 7/16 (CP) Case: MW Petroleum Corporation (B). (RP) “Cover Your Assets,”
Reason.
13 M 7/21 (RP) “Framework for Risk Management,” Froot, Scharfstein, and Stein, “A New
Approach to Evaluating Natural Resource Investments,” Brennan and Schwartz.
14 W 7/23 (CP) Case: American Barrick Resources: Managing Gold Price Risk. Review.
**This topic/assignment outline provides a general plan for the course. Changes may be necessary. If such changes are necessary, they will be announced in class and students will be responsible for accommodating them.
Withdrawals
The last day to withdraw from this course with the possibility of receiving a grade of “W” is Wednesday, July 2, 2003. This is the midpoint of the grading period. A grade of “W” is not automatic. When a student withdraws (or is withdrawn) from a course, University regulations (pages 50-52, GSU Graduate Catalog) require that the instructor assign the grade WF under any of the following circumstances:
(i) The student has been forced to withdraw because of excessive absences. The Department of Finance's policy is to deem absences of more than one week of classes in the seven week summer session as excessive.
(ii) The student withdraws from the course before the midpoint of the grading period while doing failing work.
(iii) The student withdraws from the course after the midpoint of the grading period.
Failing work (for item (ii) above) consists of having failed to earn a grade of C or better on exams taken and cases due by the date the student withdraws.
Class Attendance
An attendance sheet will be passed around each class (perhaps more than once per class). It is your responsibility to see that you have signed the sheet. If you have not signed the sheet, you will be considered absent from that class. Any student who is absent for two classes (including the first class) will be dropped from the course. Keeping track of your attendance record is your responsibility. You will not receive any formal update of your attendance record. Late arrivals to any class will not be permitted to sign the attendance sheet.
Academic Honesty
The Department of Finance adheres to the University's policy on academic honesty as contained in the Academic Regulations section of the GSU Graduate Catalog and in the Faculty Handbook and On Campus: The Undergraduate Co-Curricular Affairs Handbook. This section contains some examples of unacceptable conduct, such as plagiarism, cheating on examinations, unauthorized collaboration, etc. This policy applies to the homework, case assignments, and exams for this course.
Case Assignment: Diamond Chemicals PLC. (A): The Merseyside Project
1. What changes, if any, should Lucy Morris ask Frank Greystock to make in his discounted-cash-flow analysis? Why? What should Morris be prepared to say to the Transport Division, the Director of Sales, her assistant plant manager, and the analyst from the Treasury staff?
2. How attractive is the Merseyside project? By what criteria?
3. Should Morris continue to promote the project for funding?
Case Assignment: Diamond Chemicals PLC. (B): Merseyside and Rotterdam Projects
1. Why are the Merseyside and Rotterdam projects mutually exclusive?
2. How do the two projects compare on the basis of Diamond Chemicals’ investment criteria? What might account for the differences in rankings?
3. Is it possible to quantify the value of managerial flexibility associated with the Merseyside project? How, if at all, does flexibility affect the economic attractiveness of the project?
4. What are the differences in the ways Elizabeth Eustace and Lucy Morris have advocated their respective projects? How might these differences in style affect the outcome of the decision?
5. Which project should James Fawn propose to the chief executive officer and board of directors?
Case Assignment: MW Petroleum Corporation(A)
1. Evaluate Amoco’s and Apache’s corporate objectives and strategies. Is it reasonable to expect that the MW properties are more valuable to Apache than to Amoco? What sources of value most plausibly account for the difference between buyer and seller?
2. Structure and execute a discounted cash flow valuation of all the MW reserves using APV. How much are the reserves worth? Is your estimate more likely to be biased high or low? What are the sources of bias?
3. How would you structure an analysis of MW as a portfolio of assets-in-place and options? Specifically, which parts of the business should be regarded as assets-in-place and which as options? What kinds of options are present? Should this approach yield a higher or lower value than the all-APV approach you employed above?
4. Execute the analysis you structured in question 3, beginning with assets-in-place. How risky are the assets that underlie the options; i. e., how would you estimate s for each? How much is the whole portfolio worth?
5. Assuming a sale goes through, how does Apache exercise each of the various options? When should it do so?
Case Assignment: MW Petroleum Corporation (B)
1. What problems face Amoco and Apache in bringing this transaction to completion? What are the firms’ objectives?
2. What possible alternatives might exist to solve the stalled negotiations?
3. How can the proposed solution in Exhibit 7 be expressed in terms of financial contracts? Why do you think the deal is structured as given in Exhibit 7?
4. How much are the price-sharing and price-support arrangements worth?
5. Should Amoco accept the proposed deal from Apache, including the price-sharing and price-support arrangements?
Case Assignment: American Barrick Resources: Managing Gold Price Risk
1. In the absence of a hedging program using financial instruments, how sensitive would Barrick stock be to gold price changes? For every 1% change in gold prices, how might its stock be affected? How could the firm manage its gold price exposure without the use of financial contracts?
2. What is the stated intent of ABX’s hedging program? What should be the goal of a gold mine’s price risk management program?
3. What would convince you that a price risk management program created value for its shareholders ex ante?
4. How would you characterize the evolution of Barrick’s price risk management activities? Are they consistent with the stated policy goals?
5. How should a gold mine which wants to moderate its gold price risk compare strategies (using futures, forwards, gold loans, or spot deferred contracts) with insurance strategies (using options)? On what basis should these decisions be made? Once a firm has decided on either a hedging or an insurance strategy, how should it choose from among specific alternatives?
6. What is a “spot deferred contract?” Is it an option? a forward contract? Why has ABX chosen to rely on spot deferred contracts relative to other gold derivatives?
Contents of (CP): items sold separately at GSU Bookstore
• Diamond Chemicals PLC. (A): The Merseyside Project, (UVA-F-1351, Version 1.4).
• Diamond Chemicals PLC. (B): Merseyside and Rotterdam Projects, (UVA-F-1352, Version 1.4).
• American Barrick Resources: Managing Gold Price Risk, (HBS 9-293-128).
• Note on Adjusted Present Value, (HBS 9-293-092).
• MW Petroleum Corporation (A), (HBS 9-295-029).
• MW Petroleum Corporation (B), (HBS 9-295-045).
Contents of (RP): at DocuWeb (access instructions follow)
Readings:
• A. C. Shapiro, 1985, Corporate Strategy and the Capital Budgeting Decision, Midland Corproate Finance Journal, 3: 22-36.
• L. Trigeorgis and S. Mason, 1987, Valuing Managerial Flexibility, Midland Corporate Finance Journal, 15: 14-21.
• L. Gorman, 1997, To Wait or Not to Wait, CFO, 13: 91-94.
• S. L. Mintz, 1999, Getting Real, CFO, 15: 52-60.
• P. Coy, Exploiting Uncertainty, Business Week, June 7, 1999, 118-124.
• N. Kulatilaka and N. Venkatraman, Real Options in the Digital Economy, Financial Times Mastering Management Review, October, 1999, 26-31.