Английский язык. Практический курс для решения бизнес-задач

34. leveraged buyout (LBO) – рычаговый выкуп (выкуп в кредит)

35. hurdle price – «пороговая» цена

36. annuity n – аннуитет, рента (регулярно поступающие равные платежи)

37. coupon rate – купонная ставка

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions.

1. Is the balance sheet method an appropriate way to value a company? 2. What is the essence of the valuation method based on cash flows? 3. Why is a company’s cash cycle important? 4. How can you calculate the number of days of assets and liabilities that a firm has on hand? 5. How can you determine firm value, equity value and debt value? 6. What are the risk premiums? 7. How can you calculate cost of capital? 8. How can you estimate different betas of a company? 9. What DCF methods can be used for valuing levered assets? 10. What is the hurdle price? 11. What is the optimal capital structure? 12. What are the implications of share buyback?

Exercise 2*. Find terms in the text that match definitions given below and make sentences of your own with each term.

1. anything owned by a business or individual that has commercial or exchange value

2. financial statement that presents a «snapshot» of what the business owns, what it owes, and what equity it has on a given date

3. indicates how quickly your customers pay you

4. a discipline dealing with the firm’s operations with regard to investing and financing

5. figure representing the cost of buying raw materials and producing finished goods

6. cash or other assets you expect to use in the operation of the firm within one year

7. distribution of earnings to shareholders

8. value of a firm’s raw materials, work in process, supplies used in operations, and finished goods

9. measures the firm’s use of borrowed funds versus those funds provided by the shareholders or owners

10. amount owing to creditors for goods and services on an open account

11. amount due from customers for merchandise or services purchased on an open account

12. a company’s purchase of its outstanding stock

13. a loan for a specified amount for a fixed period of time (usually 1 to 10 years) and often with a fixed periodic repayment

Exercise 3*. Fill in the blanks using terms given below.

Introduction into the DCF Analysis

The notion that money has…… is a basic concept of finance. The sooner funds are received, the sooner they can be put to work in other new…… If funds are received later rather than sooner, the recipient forgoes the……. that could have been earned in the meantime. Therefore, to analyze the economic worth of investment opportunities, managers must take into account the timing of…….. as well as their amounts.

The rate of interest represents the rate at which……. funds can be exchanged for…… funds, and vice versa. The interest rate is the rate of exchange over time and is the tool for…….. cash flows to account for differences in timing. Time affects cash flows through the……… of compound interest.

The future value of a sum of money equals its present value…….. forward through time at the appropriate interest rate. Similarly, the present value of a future sum is its future value……….. back to the present. The present value of a……… of payments is the sum of the present values of its separate elements. In the case of level streams (……….), the computation of present value can be simplified using present-value tables.

The general DCF……. expresses the value of an asset as the sum of all payments the asset will generate, discounted to their present value. Using DCF techniques, a complex……. of cash flows extending over many time periods can be reduced to a single figure that is equivalent in value. The present value of a stream of cash…….. can be compared to the……… required to generate it. Similarly, two or more……… investments (each of which generates a complex cash flow stream) can be reduced to present values and compared directly. DCF techniques greatly simplify the……… of complex cash flow patterns.

Terms:

stream, valuation, adjusting, annuities, outlay, time value, discounted, investments, inflows, future, model, interest, cash flows, alternative, present, mechanism, pattern, compounded

Exercise 4. You are a Harvard Business School graduate hired as CFO by a major Russian company. Its CEO has heard about DCF analysis and wants to use it for valuing investment projects of his company. You have to explain to him the advantages and disadvantages of this method. Invent a dialogue between these two individuals using the following briefing materials.

What are the Pluses and Minuses of the DCF Analysis?

Advantages

Arguably the best reason to like DCF is that it produces the closest thing to an intrinsic stock value. The alternatives to DCF are relative valuation measures, which use multiples to compare stocks within a sector. While relative valuation metrics such as P/E, EV/EBITDA and price to sales ratios are fairly simple to calculate, they aren’t very useful if an entire sector or market is over– or undervalued. A carefully designed DCF, by contrast, should help investors steer clear of companies that look inexpensive against expensive peers.

Unlike standard valuation tools such as the P/E ratio, DCF relies on free cash flows. For the most part, FCF is a trustworthy measure that cuts through much of the arbitrariness and «guesstimates» involved in reported earnings. Regardless of whether a cash outlay is counted as an expense or turned into an asset on the balance sheet, free cash flow tracks the money left over for investors.

Best of all, you can also apply the DCF model as a sanity check. Instead of trying to come up with a fair value stock price, you can plug the company’s current stock price into the DCF model and, working backwards, calculate how quickly the company would have to grow its cash flows to achieve the stock price. DCF analysis can help investors identify where the company’s value is coming from and whether or not its current share price is justified.

Disadvantages

Although DCF analysis certainly has its merits, it also has its share of shortcomings. For starters, the DCF model is only as good as its input assumptions. Depending on what you believe about how a company will operate and how the market will unfold, DCF valuations can fluctuate wildly. If your inputs – free cash flow forecasts, discount rates and perpetuity growth rates – are wide of the mark, the fair value generated for the company won’t be accurate, and it won’t be useful when assessing stock prices.

DCF works best when there is a high degree of confidence about future cash flows. But things can get tricky when a company’s operations lack what analysts call «visibility» – that is, when it’s difficult to predict sales and cost trends with much certainty. While forecasting cash flows a few years into the future is hard enough, pushing results into eternity (which is a necessary input) is nearly impossible. The investor’s ability to make good forward-looking projections is critical – and that’s why DCF is susceptible to error.