MINI CASE
Hager’s Home Repair Company, a regional hardware chain that specializes in
“do-it-yourself” materials and equipment rentals, is cash rich because of several
consecutive good years. One of the alternative uses for the excess funds is an acquisition.
Doug Zona, Hager’s treasurer and your boss, has been asked to place a value on a potential
target, Lyons’ Lighting (LL), a chain that operates in several adjacent states, and he has
enlisted your help.
The table below indicates Zona’s estimates of LL’s earnings potential if it came
under Hager’s management (in millions of dollars). The interest expense listed here
includes the interest (1) on LL’s existing debt, which is $55 million at a rate of 9 percent,
and (2) on new debt expected to be issued over time to help finance expansion within the
new “L division,” the code name given to the target firm. If acquired, LL will face a 40
percent tax rate.
Security analysts estimate LL’s beta to be 1.3. The acquisition would not change
Lyons’ capital structure, which is 20 percent debt. Zona realizes that Lyons’ Lighting’s
business plan also requires certain levels of operating capital and that the annual
investment could be significant. The required levels of total net operating capital are listed
below.
Zona estimates the risk-free rate to be 7 percent and the market risk premium to be
4 percent. He also estimates that free cash flows after 2021 will grow at a constant rate of 6
percent. Following are projections for sales and other items.
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Net sales $60.00 $90.00 $112.50 $127.50 $139.70
Cost of goods sold (60%) 36.00 54.00 67.50 76.50 83.80
Selling/administrative expense 4.50 6.00 7.50 9.00 11.00
Interest expense 5.00 6.50 6.50 7.00 8.16
Total net operating capital 150.00 150.00 157.50 163.50 168.00 173.0
Hager’s management is new to the merger game, so Zona has been asked to answer some
basic questions about mergers as well as to perform the merger analysis. To structure the
task, Zona has developed the following questions, which you must answer and then defend
to Hager’s board.
Answers and Solutions: 22 – 4
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