ation Limited 2008
Chapter 1: The Role of Financial Management
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
1. With an objective of maximizing shareholder wealth, capital will tend to be allocated to the most productive investment opportunities on a risk-adjusted return basis. Other decisions will also be made to maximize efficiency. If all firms do this, productivity will be heightened and the economy will realize higher real growth. There will be a greater level of overall economic want satisfaction. Presumably people overall will benefit, but this depends in part on the redistribution of income and wealth via taxation and social programs. In other words, the economic pie will grow larger and everybody should be better off if there is no reslicing. With reslicing, it is possible some people will be worse off, but that is the result of a governmental change in redistribution. It is not due to the objective function of corporations. 2. Maximizing earnings is a nonfunctional objective for the following reasons: a. Earnings is a time vector. Unless one time vector of earnings clearly dominates all other time vectors, it is impossible to select the vector that will maximize earnings. b. Each time vector of earning possesses a risk characteristic. Maximizing expected earnings ignores the risk parameter. c. Earnings can be increased by selling stock and buying treasury bills. Earnings will continue to increase since stock does not require out-of-pocket costs. d. The impact of dividend policies is ignored. If all earnings are retained, future earnings are increased. However, stock prices may decrease as a result of adverse reaction to the absence of dividends. Maximizing wealth takes into account earnings, the timing and risk of these earnings, and the dividend policy of the firm. 3. Financial management is concerned with the acquisition, financing, and management of assets with some overall goal in mind. Thus, the function of financial management can be broken down into three major decision areas: the investment, financing, and asset management decisions. 4. Yes, zero accounting profit while the firm establishes market position is consistent with the maximization of wealth objective. Other investments where short-run profits are sacrificed for the long-run also are possible. 5. The goal of the firm gives the financial manager an objective function to maximize. He/she can judge the value (efficiency) of any financial decision by its impact on that goal. Without such a goal, the manager would be "at sea" in that he/she would have no objective criterion to guide his/her actions. 6. The financial manager is involved in the acquisition, financing, and management of assets. These three functional areas are all interrelated (e.g., a decision to acquire an asset necessitates the financing and management of that asset, whereas financing and management costs affect the decision to invest). 7. If managers have sizable stock positions in the company, they will have a greater understanding for the valuation of the company. Moreover, they may have a greater incentive to maximize shareholder wealth than they would in the absence of stock holdings. However, to the extent persons have not only human capital but also most of their financial
