Brby Case Study

There is the possibility that Timken can lose its BBB investment-grade rating. This is due to Timken taking on the $800 million in debt it needs to purchase Torrington. The change in the company’s debt composition will change ratios such as debt-to-capital which is used to determine the investment-grade rating. Compared to other industrial firms, Timken shows relatively high sales numbers ($279.4 million) as well EBITDA figures ($275.7 million). According to table 3 (p. 4), only three ratios will change as taking on the $800 million in debt. The first one is EBIT Interest Coverage Ratio, which drops from 2.63 to 0.90 and investment-rating scale falls from BBB to B. The second ratio is EBITDA Interest Coverage Ratio, which drops from 4.3 to 3.14 and investment-rating scale falls from BBB to B. The third one is Total Debt/Capital Ratio, which increases from 43 percent to 67 percent and drives the rating from BB to B. In conclusion, the $800 million debt has a negative impact on Timken, since it lowers company’s investment-rating scale.

DB could lower their short-term borrowing by lowering their dividend. This will not make the board of directors happy, since it has been mentioned that for some of their family members, this is their source of income. But lowering the dividend can be offset against

Reducing the big increases in owners' pay is another way Be Our Guest can improve its cash position. Ultimately, the company must devise a plan for funding its growth long term. While refinanced bank loans for now may be adequate to finance the company, it should consider raising funds, from selling equity for example. Proceeds from such a deal might be invested in a business that generates revenue during Be Our Guest's slow seasons and eases the firm's reliance on credit for working capital. The company "needs a game plan". Such an outline will forecast its financial needs and how to achieve them. It also would help Be Our Guest's principals decide to what extent they even want their business to expand. The owners say that they want to grow, but that is not necessarily always a good thing. With growth bigger problems will occur, bigger challenges will need to be faced, but at the same time bigger profits might be in place

Company does not have big amount of debt to pay. In 1994 its outstanding debt is only 36.4% of its total assets which is a healthy rate. Its current assets are higher 2.4 times than its current liability. Also company has no outstanding interest to pay. Price earning ratio of 42.80 is highest among the competitors. (Pls. see exhibit 2, 3&4) for details. So we can safely conclude that BBBY has great potential to sustain.

Management considering share repurchase program should weigh its benefit of financial discipline, efficient corporate strategy implementation and utilization of tax shield against the downside of cost of financial distress. It’s not the possibility of bankruptcy that causes concerns among equity holders regarding extent of leverage but the direct costs (legal, liquidation, administrative etc.) and indirect costs (deteriorated corporate image, management time and attention, agency costs of value-destructing investment, distress asset sales etc.). Exhibit 4 lists the key assumption inputs of approximating quantitative firm value/ equity value accretion. Levering UST to a larger extent by adding $1,000m does increase firm value.

By paying out excess cash and issuing debt, BBBY could improve return to equity holders and raise earnings per share (by a share repurchase).

The company position is strong enough so its better that company should use debt financing instead of equity financing.

We would recommend the capital structure with 30% debt. This is because with 30% debt, they would be able to repurchase 19.8 million shares outstanding as well as save 37.8 million in taxes. EBIT is high in this company, and because of this, financial leverage will raise EPS and ROE. However, variability also increases as financial leverage increases, so the company would not want to take on too much debt and become very risky.

borrowing aggressive to finance its growth against the capital invested by the owners. It is crucial to consider the ability the company to overcome this situation when its debt load is relatively higher than its yearly income.

BBNY’s business philosophy thus far was based on the ‘cash is king’ notion and BBNY has strayed away from leveraging debt in its business operations. BBNY was sitting on $400 million dollars excess cash and there is no debt in its capital structure; which was the concerning factor for the BBNY investor community.

BBBY will need to trade off business risk against financial risk. They operate in an industry with fairly low business risk however BBBY's operating leverage is high which could indicate a higher than industry business risk if they are not cognizant of managing their fixed costs. In addition, BBBY's debt to total asset ratio is higher than their industry. Both of these indicate a high business and financial risk. If BBBY were to recapitalize to 80% debt to total capital it would only increase their financial risk and reduce shareholders earnings per share. Therefore the recommendation for a capital structure for BBBY would be to add more than the 40% debt to total capital but not more than 80%.

An analysis of a repurchase of stock for $400 million cash, and recapitalization to 80% debt-to-total capital by borrowing $1.27 million reveals that BBBYs return on equity will be 113%, return on assets 61% and an after tax cost of debt of 28%. ROE is > ROA and ROA > after tax cost of debt. With the 80% debt-to-total capital structure ROE exceeds the other two capital structure scenarios of no debt and 40% debt-to-total capital. While all of this looks great there are other considerations. The household and personal products industries debt to total asset ratio is 34.69% while BBBY debt to total asset ratio is at 44% ($1,270,000/$2,865,023). Increasing to this capital structure would also reduce shareholders earnings per share.

One of the assumptions of the management is that they assume no acquisitions will be made in 2007. If the management decides to acquire other companies in 2007 and if they decided not to repurchase stocks, they will be able to use the 230M cash or borrow debt to finance the acquisition. And this would have little impact on financial stability. If they decided to repurchase stocks, they won’t be able to finance the acquisition with cash account, and the only way left is by borrowing more debt. And this probably have minor to major impact on financial stability depending how much the company decide to borrow.

Based on all the above historical evidences, it will be really difficult due to the fact that the company has a debt-to-total capital ratio of 88% which is $805.4 million in total debt and $107.4 million in equity. With the downgrade of the public debts, it will make the financing situation even worse since the issueing notes or bonds will not raise as much financing as when the rating is good and will be more costly since the interest rate has to increase due to the increase in risk.

The BRI can anticipate many obstacles that could stall or prevent implementation and ultimate success. China must effectively manage to appease a plethora of different players, governments, priorities and interests in the region. This requires an extravagant level of regional expertise and knowledge to manage projects in so many different places that it largely lacks right now. In many countries, China will face political instability, poorly governed states, popular backlash and social/political opposition in the regions is likely overtime. Uncertainty will transpire as leadership inevitably changes hands across the region and in China before the project is complete. The ambitiousness of the BRI poses a high economic risk for China and