Executive Summary
Tokyo Disneyland was opened to the public on April 15, 1983. This amusement park was owned and operated by an unrelated Japanese corporation. The Walt Disney Company received royalties, paid in Yen, on certain revenues generated by Tokyo Disneyland. This new overseas business venture was bringing some concern about the foreign exchange risk to Disney. The management team at the Disney has been considering hedging future Yen inflows from Disney Tokyo since 1985. Mr. Anderson, the director of finance at The Walt Disney Company, focused his attention on a possible 15 billion ten-year term loan with an interest rate of 7.5% paid semiannually. On the other hand, Goldman Sachs, who had been working with Disney on this problem, presents a rather unusual but potentially attractive solution: Disney could issue ECU Eurobonds and swap into a Yen liability. Goldman Sachs suggested them to create a Yen liability by swapping 10-year ECU Eurobonds with a sinking fund, the all-in costs of which were denominated in Yen.
As financial consultants, we have been asked by Walt Disney’s management to provide an evaluation of this alternative to the company for this financing decision. For this estimate, we have reviewed the data of the Consolidated Income Statements from 1982 to 1983, the Consolidated Balance Sheets of 1984 and 1983, the Historical Summary of Average Yen/Dollar Exchange Rates and Price Indexes, ECU/Yen Swap flows in the following ten years, Yen Long-dated foreign exchange forward, Cash flow of 10-year ECU Euro bonds with sinking fund (Exhibit 6), and also the list of the French Utility’s outstanding publicly Traded Eurobonds.
We employed the internal rate of return analysis to evaluate the each alternative. If taking the Goldman’s swap solution, Disney’s borrowing cost would be 7.004% in Yen (9.979% in dollar). If adopting the 10-year term loan, the total effective cost would be 7.748% in Yen (10.694% in dollar). Furthermore, by these data we also determined the total expected future revenue under different assumption of the growth rate and found it could cover all the future interest expense in the following ten years
We recommend the management of Walt Disney to ACCEPT the Goldman’s Solution to create10-year ECU Euro bonds with sinking fund and swap with the French utility since this indirect Yen financing has smaller XIRR that means it would be lower borrowing cost than a similar 10 year Yen term loan.
These ratios can be used to determine the most desirable company to grant a loan to between Wendy’s and Bob Evans. Wendy’s has a debt to assets ratio of 34.93% while Bob Evans is 43.68%. When it comes to debt to asset ratios, the company with the lower percentage has the lowest risk. Therefore, Wendy’s is more desirable than Bob Evans. In the area of debt to equity ratios, Wendy’s comes in at 84.31% while Bob Evans comes in at 118.71%. Like debt to assets, a low debt to equity ratio indicates less risk in a company. Again, Wendy’s is the less risky company. Finally, Wendy’s has a times interest earned ratio of 4.86 while Bob Evans owns a 3.78. Unlike the previous two ratios, times interest earned ratio is measured on a scale of 1 to 5. The closer the ratio is to 5, the less risky a company is. From the view of a banker, any ratio over 2.5 is an acceptable risk. Both companies are an acceptable risk, however, Wendy’s is once again more desirable. Based on these findings, Wendy’s is the better choice for banks to loan money to because of the lower level of
Thirdly, serial borrowing and repurchase throughout several years is considered. This is essentially the financial policy the company has adopted these years. This policy is less risky measured by coverage ratios and is more acceptable to stockholders. However, UST has imminent challenges and value enhancing objectives to meet. If the company has debt capacity untapped upon, large sum repurchases avoid excessive advisory fee, negotiation time and effort, potentially credit rating charge while immediate significant tax shield benefit is made possible.
A group of investors (Arundel group) is looking into the idea of purchasing the sequel rights associated with films produced by one or more major movie studios. Movie rights are to be purchased prior to films being made. Arundel wants to come up with a decision to either purchase all the sequel rights for a studio's entire production during a specified period of time or purchase a specified number of major films. Arundel's profitability is dependent upon the price it pays for a portfolio of sequel rights. Our analysis of Arundel's proposal includes a net present value calculation of each movie production company. In order to decide whether Arundel can make money buying movie sequel rights depends on whether the net present value of the production company's movies is higher than the estimated 2M per film required to purchase the rights.
We defined several criteria to determine our choice – return, risks and other quantitative and qualitative factors. Targeting a debt ratio of 40% will maximize the firm’s value. A higher earning’s per share and dividends per share will lead to a higher stock price in the future. Due to leveraging, return on equity is higher because debt is the major source of financing capital expenditures. To maintain the 40% debt ratio, no equity issues will be declared until 1985. DuPont will be financing the needed funds by debt. For 1986 onwards, minimum equity funds will be issued. It will be timed to take advantage of favorable market condition. The rest of the financing required will be acquired by issuing debt.
This report attempts to examine the Walt Disney Company as an organization whose international operations play a vital role in the company’s continuing existence. This report seeks to present a review and analysis of the company’s global strategy by analyzing the key internal and external factors that impact on the company and how it has used alliances and acquisitions as part of its global strategy. As a human technology-intensive company, this paper seeks to understand how Disney was able to leverage its resources to create a competitive advantage. As an important aspect of its operations, relevant management issues are reviewed to see how it has affected the company’s global expansion strategy.
(1) Michel G. Rukstad, David Collis; The Walt Disney Company: The Entertainment King; Harvard Business School; 9-701-035; Rev. January 5, 2009
amounts of equity (Disney and Government) as well as with subordinated debt (Government), Disney had
In “Preferred Shares” alternative, a local investment fund will invest $3.5 million preferred shares with a coupon rate of 7%, which will add interest expense by $245,000 annually as well as a leverage of 50% of the firm’s ownership if Globals are unable to pay dividends for two consecutive years. Total outstanding will come to 1,500,000 shares, making weighted average shares of 1,250,000. Net income will be brought to $330,750 and EPS will come up to
This case provides a brief history of management conflict and change at Walt Disney Company. Former CEO Michael Eisner was considered to be controversial because of his abrasive style and tendencies toward micromanagement. It was this style that strained several important relationships to the Disney Company. Though his reign as CEO during the 80’s and 90’s helped advance Disney Company, it was his conflicting management style that led to his demise and the beginning of Robert Iger’s epoch at Disney. Since Iger has taken the helm as CEO Disney was ranked 67th in the Fortune 500 list for largest companies, it has become the largest media conglomerate in the world, and relationships and disputes stemming from Eisner have been reconciled.
There is a range of criteria relevant for a decision of financing a new venture. To construct my list for the evaluation of a new company as an opportunity I have selected to refer to t...
This channel has been doing well financially and this may make the reporting of statements of finance at Disney to be overstated so as to attract more investors than the competitor (Mertz, 1999).
In Disney-Pixar’s M&A deal; the bidder, Disney chose the option of paying for the target, Pixar’s shares with a stock-for-stock offer. Disney decided that this is the best way to finance the transaction. In this type of acquisition deal there will be an exchange of share certificates. When the target is acquired with stock-for-stock offer, new shares from the bidder's stock are dispensed directly to the target's shareholders, or the new shares are directed to a broker who looks after them for target’s shareholders. In Disney’s case, the shareholders of Pixar swapped their shares for the shares of Disney. Unlike the cash-for-stock acquisition deal, in a stock-for-stock acquisition deal the bidder can enjoy a distinct financial advantage. As per the tax laws in United States of America when an M&A deal is finance through a stock-for-stock deal, it will not be subjective to taxation. This type of offer is beneficial for the target when its shareholders do not want to recognise the taxable gains immediately. Conversely, the shareholders of the target will pay income taxes only when they sell the shares paid to them by the bidder. Shareholders of the target will pay taxes only on the variance between their cost basis in the stock of the target and the price at which they sell the stock of the bidder. This is the reason as to why numerous M&A deals are carried out as stock-for-stock transactions.
Through the ratio analysis, we can conclude that Disney is a stable company, keeping up with industry trends and up to par with industry averages. Although at times it can seem that Disney is a risky and unstable company, those conclusions are false since the unstableness has come through decisions which will better establish Disney’s position on the market. Although Disney’s competition, namely CBS, is on a similar standing as Disney when comparing ratios, Disney will manage to remain the largest media conglomerate in the USA and one of the best corporations in the world.
But the Disney theme park located just outside Paris did not consider several managerial issues as well as consumer preferences. Walt Disney found Chinese population very lucrative and wanted to open a theme park somewhere around China. After two American parks and one Japanese park, they wanted to avail of the Chinese market which was previously unexplored. Disneyland, after initial talks with Hong Kong government, eliminated any other possibility of majority ownership so that they could invest on management and fees of franchise from their first-cut profits. Finally, Walt Disney had a management team of long experience of dealing with almost all the large and developed markets around the world. With the unparalleled resources and capital they already had, they could easily conduct proper market research before diving into the market in Hong
“The introduction of the euro will represent the most dramatic change in the international monetary system since President Nixon took the dollar off gold in 1971 [and when] the era of flexible exchange rates began…the euro is likely to challenge the position of the dollar [and hence] this may be the most important event in the history of the international monetary system since the dollar took over from the pound the role of dominant currency in World War I” (Mussa 2002).