Portfolio Management, Financial Management

Assignment Help:
Portfolio Project
The purpose of this project is to help you to gain an understanding of how the stock market works and of the relationship between theory and practice.

You are given a notional £200,000 to invest and manage. You are required to follow an active trading policy at least in the first term. In the second term you can follow a buy and hold policy. Shares must be bought in multiples of 100 if the price is less than £2 and in multiples of 50 if the price is greater than £2. Debentures and Government stocks, which have a nominal value of £100 each, may be bought without restriction.

Commission is payable on all purchases and sales, at the following rates:

Ordinary Shares 1.0% of value (minimum: £10)
Government Securities 0.7% of value (minimum: £12.50)

You may invest in overseas securities, though all transactions must be in £ Sterling.

Transfer stamp duty is payable on all share purchases: the rate is £0.50 for every £100 or fractional part of £100.

There are no overdraft facilities nor additional sources of finance. Your cash balance must not become negative.

You are required to liquidate your holdings by Friday 22 March, 2013, and to submit your portfolio project, together with your transactions table, by Friday 29 March, 2013. When writing up the project, there is no need to describe every single transactions you have entered into (though every transaction should be listed in your transaction sheet). You should:

(i) Outline the portfolio theory that you have applied in your project.

(ii) Carefully explain your investment policy, giving examples of how you implemented it and explaining how and why it changed over the life of the project (if it did);

(iii)Explain carefully what brought about the changes (for example, knowledge you gained on the course or from practical experience);

(iv) Comment on your findings.

(v) Comment on the divergence between the theory you have learnt on the course and the practical problems of implementation;
(vi) Comment on the performance of the stock market in general and on what you think has influenced it over the life of the project;

(vii)Provide an assessment of how well your strategy has worked in terms of risk and return. This will require a brief comparison with other strategies, one such being a buy-and-hold policy.

(viii)Any limitations that you encountered.




Post plc and Reply plc are two companies that are in the same business risk class.

Post plc is financed by 60 million ordinary shares with a market value of 350p each and by £200 million 10% irredeemable debentures with a current market value of £125 each. Post plc has operating earnings before interest and tax of £85 million per annum.


Reply plc is financed by 10 million ordinary shares with a market value of 700p each and by £60 million 5% irredeemable debentures with a market value of £70.00 each. Reply plc has operating earnings before interest and tax of £20 million per annum.

Both companies have the same dividend policy in that they both do not retain any earnings, choosing instead to distribute all the earnings to their shareholders.

Mr Roberts is a shareholder in Post plc, with a holding of 2,000 ordinary shares. Mr Roberts is thinking of selling his shares in Post plc and buying shares in Reply plc as he believes he may be able to make a capital gain by doing so. Assume that Mr Roberts is able to borrow or lend at a rate of 10%.

The rate of corporation tax is given as 30%.
Required
(a)
(i) Calculate the after tax cost of equity, the after tax cost of debt, and the overall weighted average cost of capital for both Post plc and Reply plc. Explain what each of these represents.
[30 marks]
(ii) Mr Roberts has asked for your advice as he wishes to switch his investment from Post plc to Reply plc but still retain his investment profile. Carefully explain showing all calculations what actions Mr Roberts would have to take in order to achieve this position. Fully explain your answer. Would you advise Mr Roberts to go ahead with such a switch.
[55 marks]
(iii) Calculate Mr Roberts income position in Post plc and Reply plc both before and after the switch.
[15 marks]



Related Discussions:- Portfolio Management

Pension fund management, Pension fund management Pension fund systems o...

Pension fund management Pension fund systems ought to be carefully designed and supervised to make sure that their purposes are met, the economic consequences are appropriate a

Concept of yield measures, A fixed income security investor can expect to r...

A fixed income security investor can expect to receive a rupee returns from the following sources: (a) Interest payment, (b) Capital gain or loss at maturity or when so

Find out the price of equity shares., Following details are related to thre...

Following details are related to three companies which are identical except in terms of ''r''. Company ABC Ltd. MNC Ltd. XYZ Ltd. Cost of capital 10% 10% 10% Earn per

Process of bringing a new international bond issue to market, Discuss the p...

Discuss the process of bringing a new international bond issue to market. Answer:  A borrower desiring to increase funds by issuing Eurobonds to the investing public will conta

What is profit maximisation criterion, Profit maximisation criterion P...

Profit maximisation criterion Profit maximisation criterion is unsuitable and inappropriate as an operational objective of financing, investment and dividend decisions of a fi

Calculate amount to fund the endowment, On Completion of her introductory f...

On Completion of her introductory finance course, Kieran was so pleased with the amount of useful and interesting knowledge she gained that she convinced her parents, who were weal

What is a treasury bill? how risky is it?, What is a Treasury bill? How ris...

What is a Treasury bill? How risky is it? Treasury bills are the short-term debt instruments issued by the U.S. Treasury that are sell at a discounted and pay face value at mat

Risks associated with investing in bonds, Interest rate risk is the risk wh...

Interest rate risk is the risk wherein the investor in bonds faces the risk of a fall in his bond price as and when there is a rise in the market interest r

Determine wacc- net operating cash flow- npv- irr-pi, Prepare a capital bud...

Prepare a capital budget analysis of the following data, your analysis should determine WACC, Net Operating Cash Flow, NPV, IRR, PI, and Payback analysis. This analysis is for t

Computing the expected total return for investment, To compute the total ...

To compute the total returns we need the investment horizon, reinvestment rate and the price of the bond at the end of the investment horizon. Steps involved in computi

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd