Walt Disney Harvard Case

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1. Introduction The Walt Disney Company (Disney), like many other international firms that have gone global, faces tremendous currency risks when their income is generated in a foreign currency but income and balance sheet items are denominated in the local currency. Tokyo Disneyland, opened for just over two years in July 1985, provides Yen denominated royalty receipts. These receipts are expected to grow 10% to 20% per year over the next few years. Disney is considering hedging tools to reduce its yen exposure especially given the recent depreciation of the yen against the dollar by 8% in a year. Hedging tools under consideration include: foreign-exchange options, futures, forwards, swaps, term loans and the arrangement by Goldman Sachs. Disney needs to assess which tool would be best suited for their objectives to: i) reduce yen currency risk exposure at the lowest cost ii) reduce dollar short term debt and lengthen overall liability maturities. 2. Hedging Yen Royalties 2.1 Should Disney Hedge its Yen Royalties? Yen royalties that Disney was receiving from Tokyo Disneyland in 1984 was just over 8 Billion JPY. This represented 1.95% of Disney’s total revenue and approximately 33% of their total net income in 1984 (Appendix B). Looking at past JPY/USD data since the abolition of the Bretton Woods system, the monthly standard deviation of the two currencies stands at 3.027% and 10.49% per annum, with approximately a 31.7% chance that the exchange rate will deviate more than one standard deviation and that represents 0.2% of total 1984 revenue and 3.5% of total income in a single year. Given that the Yen royalties is expected to rise by 10% to 20%, and set to outpace US operations, the exposure to Japanese Yen is set to increase and hence Disney

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