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A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loans, along with the assets of the acquiring company. The use of debt, which normally has a lower cost of capital than equity, serves to reduce the overall cost of financing the acquisition. The cost of debt is lower because interest payments often reduce corporate income tax liability, whereas dividend payments normally do not. This reduced cost of financing allows greater gains to accrue to the equity, and, as a result, the debt serves as a lever to increase the returns to the equity.
The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the rate that a company is expected to pay on average to all its security holders to finance its assets. The WACC is commonly referred to as the firm's cost of capital. Importantly, it is dictated by the external market and not by management. The WACC represents the minimum return that a company must earn on an existing asset base to satisfy its creditors, owners, and other providers of capital, or they will invest elsewhere.
Private equity (PE) typically refers to investment funds, generally organized as limited partnerships, that buy and restructure companies. More formally, private equity is a type of equity and one of the asset classes consisting of equity securities and debt in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange.
The Modigliani–Miller theorem is an influential element of economic theory; it forms the basis for modern thinking on capital structure. The basic theorem states that in the absence of taxes, bankruptcy costs, agency costs, and asymmetric information, and in an efficient market, the enterprise value of a firm is unaffected by how that firm is financed. This is not to be confused with the value of the equity of the firm. Since the value of the firm depends neither on its dividend policy nor its decision to raise capital by issuing shares or selling debt, the Modigliani–Miller theorem is often called the capital structure irrelevance principle.
Adjusted present value (APV) is a valuation method introduced in 1974 by Stewart Myers. The idea is to value the project as if it were all equity financed ("unleveraged"), and to then add the present value of the tax shield of debt – and other side effects.
In financial markets, stock valuation is the method of calculating theoretical values of companies and their stocks. The main use of these methods is to predict future market prices, or more generally, potential market prices, and thus to profit from price movement – stocks that are judged undervalued are bought, while stocks that are judged overvalued are sold, in the expectation that undervalued stocks will overall rise in value, while overvalued stocks will generally decrease in value.
In economics and accounting, the cost of capital is the cost of a company's funds, or, from an investor's point of view "the required rate of return on a portfolio company's existing securities". It is used to evaluate new projects of a company. It is the minimum return that investors expect for providing capital to the company, thus setting a benchmark that a new project has to meet.
In corporate finance, free cash flow (FCF) or free cash flow to firm (FCFF) is the amount by which a business's operating cash flow exceeds its working capital needs and expenditures on fixed assets. It is that portion of cash flow that can be extracted from a company and distributed to creditors and securities holders without causing issues in its operations. As such, it is an indicator of a company's financial flexibility and is of interest to holders of the company's equity, debt, preferred stock and convertible securities, as well as potential lenders and investors.
Capital structure in corporate finance is the mix of various forms of external funds, known as capital, used to finance a business. It consists of shareholders' equity, debt, and preferred stock, and is detailed in the company's balance sheet. The larger the debt component is in relation to the other sources of capital, the greater financial leverage the firm is said to have. Too much debt can increase the risk of the company and reduce its financial flexibility, which at some point creates concern among investors and results in a greater cost of capital. Company management is responsible for establishing a capital structure for the corporation that makes optimal use of financial leverage and holds the cost of capital as low as possible.
In finance, mezzanine capital is any subordinated debt or preferred equity instrument that represents a claim on a company's assets which is senior only to that of the common shares. Mezzanine financings can be structured either as debt or preferred stock.
The return on equity (ROE) is a measure of the profitability of a business in relation to the equity. Because shareholder's equity can be calculated by taking all assets and subtracting all liabilities, ROE can also be thought of as a return on assets minus liabilities. ROE measures how many dollars of profit are generated for each dollar of shareholder's equity. ROE is a metric of how well the company utilizes its equity to generate profits.
A PIK, or payment in kind, is a type of high-risk loan or bond that allows borrowers to pay interest with additional debt, rather than cash. That makes it an expensive, high-risk financing instrument since the size of the debt may increase quickly, leaving lenders with big losses if the borrower is unable to pay back the loan.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:
The trade-off theory of capital structure is the idea that a company chooses how much debt finance and how much equity finance to use by balancing the costs and benefits. The classical version of the hypothesis goes back to Kraus and Litzenberger who considered a balance between the dead-weight costs of bankruptcy and the tax saving benefits of debt. Often agency costs are also included in the balance. This theory is often set up as a competitor theory to the pecking order theory of capital structure. A review of the trade-off theory and its supporting evidence is provided by Ai, Frank, and Sanati.
In the theory of capital structure, internal financing is the process of a firm using its profits or assets as a source of capital to fund a new project or investment. Internal sources of finance contrast with external sources of finance. The main difference between the two is that internal financing refers to the business generating funds from activities and assets that already exist in the company whereas external financing requires the involvement of a third party. Internal financing is generally thought to be less expensive for the firm than external financing because the firm does not have to incur transaction costs to obtain it, nor does it have to pay the taxes associated with paying dividends. Many economists debate whether the availability of internal financing is an important determinant of firm investment or not. A related controversy is whether the fact that internal financing is empirically correlated with investment implies firms are credit constrained and therefore depend on internal financing for investment. Studies show that the availability of funds within a company is a major driver for investment decisions. However, the success and growth of a company is almost entirely dependant on the financial management and the use of internal financing does not explicitly mean success or growth for the firm. The financial manager can use a range of sources including but not limited to retained earnings, the sale of assets, and the reduction and control of working capital to drive expansion and better utilise funds. The availability of internal finance does not have a massive effect on firm growth.
Recapitalization is a type of corporate reorganization involving substantial change in a company's capital structure. Recapitalization may be motivated by a number of reasons. Usually, the large part of equity is replaced with debt or vice versa. In more complicated transactions, mezzanine financing and other hybrid securities are involved.
In finance, the capital structure substitution theory (CSS) describes the relationship between earnings, stock price and capital structure of public companies. The CSS theory hypothesizes that managements of public companies manipulate capital structure such that earnings per share (EPS) are maximized. Managements have an incentive to do so because shareholders and analysts value EPS growth. The theory is used to explain trends in capital structure, stock market valuation, dividend policy, the monetary transmission mechanism, and stock volatility, and provides an alternative to the Modigliani–Miller theorem that has limited descriptive validity in real markets. The CSS theory is only applicable in markets where share repurchases are allowed. Investors can use the CSS theory to identify undervalued stocks.
Dividend policy is concerned with financial policies regarding paying cash dividend in the present or paying an increased dividend at a later stage. Whether to issue dividends, and what amount, is determined mainly on the basis of the company's unappropriated profit and influenced by the company's long-term earning power. When cash surplus exists and is not needed by the firm, then management is expected to pay out some or all of those surplus earnings in the form of cash dividends or to repurchase the company's stock through a share buyback program.
A dividend recapitalization in finance is a type of leveraged recapitalization in which a payment is made to shareholders. As opposed to a typical dividend which is paid regularly from the company's earnings, a dividend recapitalization occurs when a company raises debt —e.g. by issuing bonds to fund the dividend.
Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with sources of funding, the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize or increase shareholder value.
References
- ↑ U.C. Peyer and A. Shivdasani, "Leverage and Internal Capital Markets: Evidence from Leveraged Recapitalizations", Journal of Financial Economics Volume 59, Issue 3, March 2001, Pages 477-515. Available free online Archived 2006-01-16 at the Wayback Machine . According to these authors, leveraged companies increased their debt-to-capital ratio from 17% to 50% in a span of 12 years.
Downes, John (2003). Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms . Barron's. ISBN 0-7641-2209-6.
