WMBA 6070 · Week 4

WMBA 6070 Week 4 hurdle rate memo example

Managerial Finance Walden University Free custom sample in 24 to 48h

Week 4 produces a memo whose entire purpose is one number that later weeks will lean on. A finished hurdle rate memo works through the cost of each financing source the scenario firm actually carries, weights them by its capital structure, and then argues that the resulting figure is or is not the right screen for the projects waiting on the table.

What this page holds

This memo is judged on the weights and the evidence behind each component cost. A rate assembled from textbook defaults reads as a placeholder rather than as the firm's own. Searches like "wmba 6070 week 4 assignment example", "wmba6070 week 4 sample" and "wmba 6070 week 4 example" land here.

What a finished WMBA 6070 Week 4 hurdle rate memo looks like

A memo header sits at the top, addressed to a named officer of the scenario firm, and the document runs two to three pages under it. The first paragraph states the number and the use being proposed for it. A component table follows, one row for each financing source the firm carries, with columns for the pre-tax cost, the after-tax cost, the weight, and the weighted contribution; the weights sum to one and the final column sums to the proposed rate. Beneath the table a short paragraph explains the tax treatment of interest and why preferred shares do not receive it. A second paragraph proposes an adjustment, upward or downward, for a division whose risk differs from the firm's average. The closing paragraph states the screening rule in plain terms.

How a WMBA 6070 Week 4 example is structured

The memo is written from the capital structure outward. Weights come first, taken from market values where the scenario supplies them and from the balance sheet only when it does not, and the memo says which it used. Each component cost is then attached to its own evidence: a yield on outstanding debt, a dividend and a price for preferred, a return assembled from a risk-free rate and a premium for common shares. The arithmetic stays inside the table so the discussion can remain in prose. What follows the table is the part turning a calculation into a memo, namely the argument that this particular figure belongs in front of this particular set of projects. The divisional adjustment sits there instead of in a footnote, since it decides which projects clear.

A number with a job attached

The opening paragraph says what the rate is for before it says what the rate is. A screen for next year's proposals, a discount rate for the case under review, a floor for pricing a contract: naming the use is what keeps the rest of the memo from reading as an exercise completed for its own sake.

Weights from market values

Proportions come from what the securities are worth now rather than what they were issued for, wherever the case provides prices. Where it does not, book proportions stand in and one sentence records the substitution, which costs nothing and protects the criterion asking whether the difference was understood.

The tax shield, stated once

Interest is deductible and dividends are not, so debt enters the table after tax and everything else enters before it. One clean sentence covers this. Memos that repeat the point in three places usually do so because the table itself never applied it, and graders check the column rather than the prose.

One division priced differently

A firm-wide figure misprices its own riskiest unit, and the memo says so with a number: a stated premium added for the volatile division, a deduction for the regulated one. The adjustment is small and defended, and it demonstrates more than another decimal place on the average ever could.

A screening rule in plain terms

The last paragraph converts the rate into an instruction a manager can apply without recomputing anything: proposals returning less than the stated figure do not proceed, with the divisional variant named alongside. That sentence is what a reader takes away, and it belongs in the memo rather than in the writer's head.

Where marks go in WMBA 6070 Week 4

The largest deduction in this week lands on a rate computed correctly and then left sitting there. Sections want the figure put to work, and the paragraph applying it to the projects in the scenario is worth more than the table above it. Two mechanical bands recur after that: interest treated after tax, and weights taken from market values with a sentence saying so. Book weights pass in classrooms where the case gives nothing else, but only when the substitution is acknowledged. Credit also attaches to the divisional adjustment, which is where a reader learns whether the writer sees that one average rate cannot screen two unlike businesses. Memos reproducing a formula without populating it from the case are marked as unsupported.

Get a WMBA 6070 Week 4 example written to your instructions

The Week 4 prompt and its rubric are enough to start, though the case exhibit showing debt, preferred and equity balances makes the sample sharper. A finished hurdle rate memo comes back in 24 to 48 hours, free the first time. Tell the desk whether the divisional adjustment is required, since that changes the closing section.

WMBA 6070 Week 4 questions, answered

What if the case only gives balance sheet figures?

Book weights are acceptable in that situation and most sections say so, but the substitution has to be visible. One sentence noting that market values were unavailable and that book proportions stand in their place protects the criterion. Memos using book figures silently are marked as though the writer never knew the difference existed.

How is the cost of equity built when no beta appears?

The dividend growth route works whenever the firm pays a steady dividend and the case gives a price: the current dividend over that price, plus the growth rate, each input sourced. Where neither beta nor dividends exist, sections accept a defended estimate built from a risk-free rate and a market premium, provided both come from a dated source you can name.

Should the memo recommend a single rate or a range?

A single rate, with the range mentioned. The document proposes a screen, and a screen made of a range cannot reject anything. Strong memos give the figure, note the interval the assumptions support, and say which end they would apply to a proposal whose cash flows arrive late in its life.