问一道题：NO.PZ201601200500004406

问题如下：

Bobby Lee is an equity analyst for the US investment management firm Larocque & Frères. Larocque & Frères has a substantial ownership stake in Skylark Industries, a US-based company that operates in several business segments related to defense.

Lee is reviewing the corporate governance standards at Skylark and how they may affect the firm’s valuation. After extensive conversations with Skylark’s chief financial officer, Doreen Miller, he summarizes the attributes of Skylark’s governance system as:

Attribute 1

Defining the rights of shareholders relative to bondholders, suppliers, customers, and employees.

Attribute 2

Outlining specific responsibilities toward stakeholders that managers and directors must fulfill.

Attribute 3

Separating the roles of chairman and chief executive officer.

Lee is aware that weak corporate governance systems pose risks to the value of investments in the form of accounting risk, asset risk, liability risk, and strategic policy risk. He is considering whether Skylark’s frequent acquisitions and extensive use of operating leases, respectively, represent examples of these risks.

Lee is also interested in determining whether Skylark’s capital structure is optimal. He asks the director of research, "Does the ‘optimal capital structure’ result in the lowest beta, the lowest cost of equity, the highest earnings per share, or the lowest weighted average cost of capital?"

Using various sources, Lee estimates Skylark’s costs of debt and equity for various capital structures, shown in Exhibit 1. Currently, Skylark has a market capitalization of $2 billion of debt and $8 billion of equity. The income tax rate is 36 percent.

During a shareholder conference call, Miller states that the company’s objective is to minimize the weighted average cost of capital. She describes possible corporate actions. Use an amount equal to half of its net income to:

Corporate action 1   initiate a dividend

Corporate action 2   repurchase shares

Corporate action 3   reduce existing debt

After the conference call, Lee decides that Skylark should raise an additional $1 billion of debt and use the proceeds to repurchase common shares.

Lee also thinks that distributing an amount equal to half of its net income as a dividend may change Skylark’s leading P/E. Miller responds, "Skylark’s competitors that pay a dividend appear to benefit from a 100 basis point reduction in cost of equity, regardless of capital structure. I assume Skylark’s cost of equity would decline by the same amount if it initiates a dividend." Lee estimates that Skylark’s long-term earnings and dividend growth rate is 7.0 percent.

Note: Current capital structure (indicated in italics) is $2 billion of debt, $8 billion of equity.

6. Given Skylark’s current capital structure and Miller’s assumption about the dividend’s effect on the cost of equity, initiating a dividend will result in a price-to-earnings multiple closest to:

选项：

16.7.

20.0.

25.0.

解释：

C is correct.

The Gordon growth model can be used to calculate the P/E as the payout ratio divided by the difference between cost of equity and growth. In this case, the payout ratio would be 50%, cost of equity would drop from the current 10% (see table) to 9%, and the growth rate is 7%. The leading P/E is 0.5/(0.09 – 0.07) = 25×.