EXHIBIT 6 Analysts' Checklist for Cost-of-Capital Estimates
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Principle
- Think like an investor and be forward looking.
- Use financial market data.
- Find comparable companies with similar business risk.
- Be sensitive to trade- offs in looking for the best comparable versus using many companies.
- Cost of equity must reflect not only business risk but also financial risk.
- Look to yields in debt markets for cost of debt.
- Use a number of models and approaches to triangulate your estimate.
- Be wary of false precision.
- Math cash flows and discount rates in terms of currencies.
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Why
- You are estimating investor - required returns for the future.
- Use market values and other finance deal with.
- Different levels of risks carry different required rates of return.
- If you focus on the one " best" comparable you have higher chances of large estimation errors in statistical estimates you may be using (e.g.,betas). If you include a wide range of Comparables, estimation errors may average out but you may not have as good a match on risk.
- Shareholder required returns ( and betas) are based on both business risk and financial risk introduced by the use of debt.
- In bond markets, yields to maturity and quotes on new issues ( e.g.,from banks or investment banks ) provide forward- looking costs of debt.
- Theoretical models are useful but not perfect in their application. Assumptions and Comparables are sometimes hard to specify exactly. See if your results are very sensitive to what appears to be reasonable alternative.
- Estimating costs of equity and weighted-average costs of capital involve many judgments and approximations. Your final estimate is subject to these approximations.
- Increasingly, companies operate in many countries. If you are analyzing cash flows denominatied in a currency ( say DM), you must make sure that the cost of capital estimate. reflects investor perceptions of investment in that specific currency.