This case asks students to prepare a report comparing the financial and operating performance of AT&T and Verizon. Taking the perspective of a communications industry analyst, they must also consider the differences between and implications of the companies' business strategies and the differences between the technology and growth rates of the wireless and wireline business segments. As part of this exercise, students reorganize the balance sheets in terms of operating and financial components, calculate changes in working capital, derive un-levered free cash flow (FCF), and apply DuPont style ratios and margin analysis on a consolidated-as well as a segment-basis. Students must also consider the effects of actuarial gains and losses on operating results; and how analysts might adjust for those effects. The case was designed for first-year MBA students in financial statement analysis (FSA) and accounting classes, but it could also be used in other courses to prepare for discounted cash flow (DCF) exercises.
NII Holdings, Inc. is a U.S. firm with headquarters in Reston, Virginia, and wireless telephony operations under the Nextel brand in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. During 2012, as the firm struggled with a weak competitive position and a transition to a new 3G platform, its operating results suffered, and a number of analysts were concerned about the firm's liquidity. Against this backdrop, NII decides to refocus its operations on Mexico and Brazil. In April 2013, the company enters into an agreement to sell Nextel Peru to Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones S.A. (Entel) for between $397 million and $415 million. Through the use of Andean Capital Advisors, and its first-year associate Rafael d'Anconia, the case is meant to demonstrate concepts surrounding the derivation of the cost of capital in international settings. The case was designed for use in first-year MBA courses, but it can also be adopted for courses focusing on international finance.
Longview Investments, an investor in alternative asset classes, had recently developed a new investment thesis to take advantage of several emerging macroeconomic themes. The strategy was premised on the belief that inflation and interest rates were likely to accelerate in the future and that digital real estate was likely to offer a superior return due to developing trends in technology and IT management. Specifically, the firm noticed greater utilization of cloud-based applications and mobile devices; the increased need for ubiquitous access to digitized data, as well as the explosion in the amount of electronic data generally; and the shifting of firms away from the use of small server closets and toward larger datacenter environments. The net result was a heightened interest in REITs specializing in digital real estate. The case is meant to demonstrate the sum of the parts valuation methodology as a capstone exercise for an introductory finance class in a first-year MBA setting. It follows an investment professional as he develops a hypothesis related to Digital Realty Trust (DLR), a publicly traded REIT specializing in digital real estate.
This case considers the valuation of Lin TV, a publicly-traded company with 30 TV stations. The case highlights how a change in operating strategy can enhance the firm's value, and considers the effect of consolidation within the industry on firm value.
A hedge fund is deciding whether to liquidate its position in Apollo Group, a for-profit education firm, in light of significant political and macro-economic uncertainty facing the industry. As part of the investment analysis a complete discounted cash flow analysis must be performed.
This case can be used as a capstone valuation exercise for first-year MBA students in an introductory finance course. A senior associate in the business development group at American Cable Communications, one of the largest cable companies in the U.S., must prepare a preliminary valuation for acquiring AirThread Connections, a regional cellular provider. The acquisition would give American Cable access to wireless technology and the wireless spectrum and enable the company to offer competitive service bundles including wireless, currently a hole in the company's service offering. Students learn the basic valuation concepts including DCF (discounted cash flow) using APV (adjusted present value) and WACC (weighted average cost of capital) and they must choose the appropriate approach for situations in which the capital structure is changing or assumed to be constant. Students must consider the effect of constant debt versus the D/V (debt-to-value ratio) in estimating betas and the costs of capital. In addition, students analyze the effects of non-operating assets on valuation. As an additional assignment, instructors can require students to consider the personal tax disadvantage of debt as well as the synergies American Cable expects to achieve following the acquisition.
A diversified mid-sized manufacturer of kitchen tools contemplates a stock repurchase in response to an unsolicited takeover. The company must determine the optimal debt capacity and capital structure, and subsequently estimate the resulting change in firm value and stock price. Attention is also given to the value of interest tax shields.
In January 2007, West Coast Fashions, Inc., a large designer and marketer of branded apparel, announced a strategic reorganization that would result in the divestiture of their wholly owned footwear subsidiary, Mercury Athletic. John Liedtke, the head of business development for Active Gear, a mid-sized athletic and casual footwear company, saw the potential acquisition of Mercury as a unique opportunity to roughly double the size of his business. The case uses the potential acquisition of Mercury Athletic as a vehicle to teach students basic DCF (discounted cash flow) valuation using the weighted average cost of capital (WACC).
The senior vice president of project finance for a global oil and gas company must determine the weighted average cost of capital for the company as a whole and each of its divisions as part of the annual capital budgeting process. The case uses comparable companies to estimate asset betas for each operating division, and employs the Capital Asset Pricing Model to determine the cost of equity. Students are required to un-lever and re-lever betas and, choose an appropriate risk-free rate, and compute costs of debt and equity.