Clakson Lumber Essay

868 Words4 Pages
1. What factors should the management consider in evaluating the proposed advertising program and technology upgrades? Ameritrade’s management has to first consider the required investment expenses and the expected increase in future cash flows from the proposed advertising and technology upgrades. For calculating the future cash flows, the company should also take in to account fluctuation in market demand and its effect on the project viability. The next major item will be to calculate the cost of capital and compare that to their expected IRR, which should be larger than the cost of capital. Management then must consider what their source of financing would be (i.e. will the company finance this project internally, issue new stocks or take on more debt to fund this investment). The source of financing has strategic implications for the firm in terms of their capital structure and future cash flows and hence has to be decided carefully. 2. How can the CAPM be used to estimate the cost of capital for an investment decision? CAPM is a linear model that describes the relationship of the expected return of any capital asset given its intrinsic risk, the current risk free rate and current market premium. This is the return on equity investments that investors would require for assets with similar risk characteristics; therefore it can be used in conjunction with the cost of debt to calculate the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC). In cases where the firm has no debt the expected return from CAPM is the same as the cost of equity. 3. What is the estimate for the risk free rate and the market risk premium that should be employed in computing the cost of capital for Ameritrade? Justify your decisions. We used the prevailing annualized yield to maturity of 5-year Bonds as the estimated risk-free rate. Ameritrade is a discount brokerage
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