Course Content
Organizational Forms, Corporate Issuer Features, and Ownership
This is Reading 22 of CFA Level 1, Corporate Issuers, 2024 course. This reading consists of three LOSs, i.e.,: a. compare the organizational forms of businesses b. describe key features of corporate issuers c. compare publicly and privately owned corporate issuers
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USES OF CAPITAL
This chapter is covered under study session 9, reading 28 of the study materials as provided by the CFA Institute. After reading this chapter, the candidate should be able to: a. a describe the capital allocation process and basic principles of capital allocation; b. demonstrate the use of net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) in allocating capital and describe the advantages and disadvantages of each method; c. describe expected relations among a company’s investments, company value, and share price; d. describe types of real options relevant to capital investment; e. describe common capital allocation pitfalls.
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Sources of Capital
This topic is covered under LOS 29 of study session 9. After reading this chapter, you should be able to: a. describe types of financing methods and considerations in their selection; b. describe primary and secondary sources of liquidity and factors that influence a company’s liquidity position; c. compare a company’s liquidity position with that of peer companies; d. evaluate choices of short-term funding.
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Cost of Capital
This chapter is covered under study session 10, reading 30 of the study material as provided by the CFA institute. After reading this chapter, the candidate should be able to: a) calculate and interpret the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of a company; b) describe how taxes affect the cost of capital from different capital sources; c) calculate and interpret the cost of debt capital using the yield-to-maturity approach and the debt-rating approach; d) calculate and interpret the cost of noncallable, nonconvertible preferred stock; e) calculate and interpret the cost of equity capital using the capital asset pricing model approach and the bond yield plus risk premium approach; f) explain and demonstrate beta estimation for public companies, thinly traded public companies, and nonpublic companies; g) explain and demonstrate the correct treatment of flotation costs.
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Measures of Leverage
This chapter is covered under study session 11, reading 34 of the study material as provided by the CFA institute. After reading this chapter, the candidate should be able to: a. Define and explain leverage, business risk, sales risk, operating risk, and financial risk and classify a risk, given a description. b. Calculate and interpret the degree of operating leverage, the degree of financial leverage, and the degree of total leverage. c. Analyze the effect of financial leverage on a company’s net income and return on equity. d. Calculate the breakeven quantity of sales and determine the company’s net income at various sales levels. e. Calculate and interpret the operating breakeven quantity of sales.
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Working Capital Management
This chapter is covered under study session 11, reading 35 of the study material as provided by the CFA institute. After reading this chapter, the candidate should be able to: a. describe primary and secondary sources of liquidity and factors that influence a company’s liquidity position; b. compare a company’s liquidity measures with those of peer companies; c. evaluate the working capital effectiveness of a company based on its operating and cash conversion cycles, and compare the company’s effectiveness with that of peer companies; d. describe how different types of cash flows affect a company’s net daily cash position; e. calculate and interpret comparable yields on various securities, compare portfolio returns against a standard benchmark, and evaluate a company’s short-term investment policy guidelines; f. evaluate a company’s management of accounts receivable, inventory, and accounts payable over time and compared to peer companies; g. evaluate the choices of short-term funding available to a company and recommend a financing method. 
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Corporate Issuers
About Lesson

LOS E requires us to:

describe common capital allocation pitfalls.

 

These are some of the common capital allocation mistakes often made by the investors in the process of capital allocation, they are:

a.  Not incorporating economic responses into the investment analysis. Any successful investment plan attracts economic responses, such as increased competition, etc. And it is a very common mistake by investors not to take into account the economic response by the competitors in such a situation.

b.  Misusing capital allocation templates. There are template models used for capital allocation, and there are chances that the template models do not match the requirements of the investors or the investment.  If this happens or if the information used for these templates is inappropriate, the model may lead to wrong results.

c.  Investing in pet projects.  A pet project is a project, activity, or goal pursued as a personal favorite, rather than because it is generally accepted as necessary or important. Sometimes the companies and the directors tend to favor the pet projects instead of others without undergoing normal capital allocation analysis.

d. Basing investment decisions on EPS, net income, or ROE. These are mostly short-term economic indicators. Choosing short-term accounting numbers instead of long-term economic indicators jeopardize the economic interests of the shareholders.

e. Using IRR to make investment decisions. IRR is not an appropriate measure of returns, especially in the case of non-conventional returns, mainly because in such cases, it offers more than one solution. So it is always advisable to go for different forms of analysis such as NPV.

f.  Incorrectly accounting for cash flows. There may be situations of completely omitting certain items of cash-flows or double count cash flows, etc.

g. Not using an appropriate risk-adjusted discount rate. It is extremely important to choose the correct discount rate for NPV analysis. The appropriateness of decisions made on using NPV analysis hugely depends upon the correctness of estimating the discount rates.

h. Overestimating or underestimating the overhead cost. It is extremely important to appropriately estimate the overhead and operating expenses for the correct analysis of investments.

i. Overspending and underspending the capital allocation. To maximize the value of an investment the allocated capital must be wisely allocated. It is not necessary to completely spend the same or to spend less than economically viable.

j.  Failing to consider investment alternatives or alternative states. One should consider all the available investment alternatives and choose the best one out of them. One of the biggest mistakes often made by investors is discarding some alternatives without giving them due consideration.

k. Incorrectly handling sunk costs and opportunity costs. One needs to appropriately handle the sunk cost and opportunity costs.