Case Solution Cost of Capital at Ameritrade | | • Executive summary: Formed in 1971 and listed in March 1997‚ Ameritrade has been one of the most successful players in the deep- discount brokerage sector. Ameritrade’s two major sources of revenue‚ Transaction income (brokerage commissions‚ clearing fees‚ and payment for order flow) and Net interest revenues that were generated from net balance
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have a certain debt to equity ratio they wish to maintain‚ or perhaps there would be covenants put on their contracts requiring them to maintain a certain debt to equity ratio while their loan was outstanding. Ameritrade should use a 6.10% risk free rate when calculating its cost of capital. This is the average of the 20 year bond annualized yield to maturity (on August 31‚ 1997) and the long term historical average annual return (from 1929 1996). The long term bond return was used because
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Case analysis "Cost of Capital at Ameritrade" Cost of capital refers to the maximum rate of return a company must earn from its investments‚ so that the market values of the company’s equity shares do not go down. The people at Ameritrade are not in agreement on the best estimate of the cost of capital. Research analyst put the cost of capital at 12%‚ while other members of the management estimate it to be at 9% and the CFO estimates it to be at 15%. The CEO of the company is optimistic that
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Cost of Capital at Ameritrade What factors should Ameritrade management consider when evaluating the proposed advertising program and technology upgrades? Why? Mr. Ricketts believes that his role as CEO is to maximize shareholder value by accepting any project whose expected return on investment is greater than the cost of capital. Therefore‚ the main factors that Ameritrade management should consider are the expected return on investment for the project‚ and how this compares to the project’s
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Case Study of Cost of Capital at Ameritrade 1-a How can the CAPM be used to estimate the cost of capital for a real business investment decision? CAPM results can be compared to the best expected rate of return that investor can possibly earn in other investments with similar risks‚ which is the cost of capital. Under the CAPM‚ the market portfolio is a well-diversified‚ efficient portfolio representing the non-diversifiable risk in the economy. Therefore‚ investments have similar risk if they
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Finance 5204 Managing Corporate Capital Investment and Capital Structure Case1 Cost of Capital at Ameritrade By: Elaine Huang Jonathan Hudson Christopher Lenker AMERITRADE DOES NOT HAVE A BETA ESTIMATE AS THE FIRM HAS BEEN PUBLICLY TRADED FOR ONLY A SHORT TIME PERIOD. EXHIBIT 4 PROVIDES VARIOUS CHOICES OF COMPARABLE FIRMS. WHAT COMPARABLE FIRMS DO YOU RECOMMEND AS THE APPROPRIATE BENCHMARKS FOR EVALUATING THE RISK OF AMERITRADE’S PLANNED INVESTMENTS? WHY? We recommend using the following
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Ameritrade is formed in 1971‚ and is a pioneer in the deep-discount brokerage sector. In march 1997‚ Ameritrade raised $22.5 million in an initial public offering. Management at Ameritrade is considering substantial investments in technology and advertising‚ but is unsure of the appropriate cost of capital. Estimating the cost of capital 1. Since we do not have the beta for Ameritrade‚ we need to find comparable firms for which we could compute the betas. There are several candidates in the
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Ameritrade Cost of Capital FIN 700 11/14/06 Cohort B-Team 3 Introduction Ameritrade CEO Joe Ricketts contracted our firm‚ B3 Investment Consultants‚ to provide quantitative analysis of a prospective project – entering the deep discount brokerage market. Based on the directives given by Mr. Ricketts‚ the primary focus of our analysis has been to derive an accurate estimate of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for this
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Group Case 1: Ameritrade – Cost of Capital Executive Summary: As a deep-discount brokerage‚ Ameritrade planned to improve its competitive position by price cutting‚ technology enhancements‚ and increased advertising in mid-1997. Before initiating the plan‚ Ameritrade needed know whether the investment returned more than it cost. We were hired to estimate the cost of capital correctly. The key question is to find suitable comparable firms to estimate Ameritrade’s asset beta‚ since it was a recently-listed
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Cost of Capital at Ameritrade Christoph Schneider Ross School of Business Basic assumptions Tax Rate Beta Debt Leverage (D/V) Leverage (D/E) 1997 35.5% 0.25 0.00 0.00 1996 39.4% 1995 35.1% Average 36.7% Comparable companies’ βE Tax Rate Beta Debt Leverage (D/V) Leverage (D/E) Discount Brokerage Firms Charles Schwab Quick & Reilly Waterhouse Securities 1997 35.5% 1996 39.4% β E from Jan’92-Dec’96 2.30 2.20 β E from all months 2.35 2.30
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