GESTION FINANCIERE DES ENTREPRISES LSG année académiaue 2001...
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\ GESTION FINANCIERE DES ENTREPRISES LSG année académiaue 2001-2002 Examen du 23 mars 2002 Question 1. Sur base de l'article suivant, 1.1. expliquer ce qu'est le « commercial paper» 1.2. expliquer quel est le problème qui se pose en termes gestion de trésorerie ~ \.3. que pensez-vousde l'efficience du marché des ce1'fti~ats1le.-trt:S0t'erie (dll1(M<.~ (. t <.À.t ) 1.A I 'l.CiL. lA. quelles sont les implications de cette situafion en termes de « corporate govemance » Commercial paper loses its 'easy money' allure By Gary Silverman Published: February 17 2002 in the Financial Times During the economic boom of the 1990s, the living was easy for big corporations. Ifthey needed short-term financing, they could tap the commercial paper market, a seemingly limitless source of cheap money for highly .rated companies. But those days of easy money are ending. ln recent months, several once well-regarded companies - Xerox, Enron, Tyco, Qwest, among them - have been shut out of the commercial paper market and forced to draw down credit lines at their banks. The amount of commercial paper outstanding has fallen by hundreds of billions of dollars from its peak in late 2000, and the upheaval is fuelling debate on Wall Street about the rationality ofthe market. 1;ome bankers say commercial paper is simply mispriced, and funds are behaving as ifthey agree. They are filling with portfolios with alternatives to commercial paper, such as short-term debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant govemment-sponsored enterprises that fund housing in the US. Michael Sheridan, senior portfolio manager at the Reserve Funds, which manages $15bn in money-marketfunds but joes not buy commercial paper, puts it simply: "There is no value for the increased risk." The commercial paper offers elite corporations the opportunity to borrow directly from global investors,typically money-market funds. Companies generally use commercial paper for working capital or to raise money for special .sircumstances, such as mergers and acquisitions. For the market to work, there are two basic requirements: investors need faith in the creditworthiness of issuers, and banks need to provide support in the form of credit lines, which companies use in case they are unable to sell commercial paper. Both underpinnings of the market are now under pressure. I"he collapse of Enron is the latest in a series of events in the last two years that have raised doubts about the reliability of even highly rated corporate debt. " "r'rominent investors have wondered whether ail corporate debt has become speculative in an era marked by .!!eregulation,rapid technological change and complex financial engineering. At the same time, banks are retreating from their role as providers ofback-up lines. ln part, this is the result of consolidation, but banks are also realising that providing back-up lines is a bad business. ln return for paltry fees the banks take enormous risks. They do this in the beliefthat hardly any companies will use their credit lines. Recent _events suggest otherwise. Increasingly, banks are only offering credit lines to companies that offer them opportunities for more lucrative work, ...suchas underwriting securities. When those opportunities are not available. the banks are balking. Formerly aggressive lenders - such as Bank of ..J\merica and Bank One - have slashed their commitments by tens of billions of dollars. The result is a smaller commercial paper market. US outstandings fell from $1,624bn in November 2000 to $1,406bn last week. Non-financial outstandings were down 40 per cent from the 2000 high. Europe has a smaller market and many companies corne to the US to borrow. Pricing is also more discriminating. Rates paid by companies with the same rating are diverging, underscoring concems about credit risk. The implication is that borrowing costs will rise. A weil regarded company with a five-year credit line can fund itselfwith commercial paper atjust about the London interbank offer rate, one banker said. A five-year floating rate note would cost it 60 or 70 basis points above Libor. The silver lining is that companies are locking in financing for longer periods. Short-term debt as a percentage of non-financial corporate debt is at its lowest level since 1976, said John Lonski, economist at Moody's Investors Service. That could ease liquidity concems in the future.
Transcript of GESTION FINANCIERE DES ENTREPRISES LSG année académiaue 2001...
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\GESTION FINANCIERE DES ENTREPRISES
LSG année académiaue 2001-2002
Examen du 23 mars 2002
Question 1.
Sur base de l'article suivant,1.1. expliquer ce qu'est le « commercial paper»1.2. expliquer quel est le problème qui se pose en termes gestion de trésorerie ~\.3. que pensez-vous de l'efficience du marché des ce1'fti~ats1le.-trt:S0t'erie (dll1(M
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Question 2
Combien seriez-vous prêts à payer pour une société de risque moyen, qui dégage un bénéfice de € 100.000stabledans le temps et dont le pay-our ratio est de 100 % ?
Question 3
Expliquer pourquoi l'endettement d'une entreprise peut conduire à un transfert de valeur des créanciers vers lesactionnaires.
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GESTION FINANCIERE DES ENTREPRISES
LSG année académique 2003-2004
Examen du 24 ianvier 2004
Question 1.
Sur base de l'article suivant,1.1. expliquez le lien spécifique que fait l'auteur entre comptabilité et fmance,1.2. décrivez le conflit d'intérêt entre actionnaires et créanciers auquel l'auteur fait allusion1.3. expliquez ce que sont des «loan covenants »1.4. à votre avis, tous les raisonnements de cet article sont-ils compatibles avec l'hypothèse des marchés efficients
Gustifiez votre réponse)
A doomsday threat to European dividendsBy John PlenderPublished: December 15 2003 in the Financial Times
A doomsday threatEuropean dividends
to
JOHNPLENDER....................................................................
And watch out for those loan covenants
Be warned. Seemingly arcane changes in accountancy practice can produce devastating economic upheavals. Europe is aboutto learn this lesson thanks to the European Union's decision in June last year to adopt international accounting standards for listedcompanies ITom January 2005. Brutal dividend cuts may be inescapable if the move goes ahead as planned. .
The problem lies in the interaction ofproposed international accounting standards with the capital maintenance regime in thesecond and fourth EU company law directives and in national companies legislation. These are rules designed mainly to protectcreditors ITomexcessive transfers of assets to shareholders. To prevent over-distribution, they usually stipulate a minimumlevel ofnet assets and a test based on accumulated and realised profits. A mechanicallink is thus established betweenaccountancy and the law in reaching a definition of distributable profit. It clumsily puts form before economic substance.
The more specific snag arises in the proposed treatrnent of pension fund sUIpluses and deficits and to a lesser extent in theexpensing of stock options. This is because the International Accounting Standards Board wants company income statements toinclude aIl gains and losses recognised during the year. These would include such things as fixed asset revaluations, changes inthe fair value of derivatives and actuarial gains and losses on a pension scheme. So pension fund sUIpluses and deficits nowtucked away in the notes would, appear on the face of the accounts.
Whatever the merits or otherwise of the proposai, the capital maintenance implications are serious. The volatility and size ofpension fund deficits, which in the UK have been measured in hundreds of billions this year, could hit companies' normaldistribution policies. This makes no sense where a company is a going concem, making payments into the pension fund overtime. Yet the new standards, combined with current law, would reduce investors' returns, raise companies' cost of capital,undermine loan covenants and put jobs at risk without any change in the underlying economic position of those affected.
It is, in effect, a potential pensions doomsday machine that vastly increases the risk ofinvesting in already risky equities. Ifmarkets are weak, pension fund deficits will hit distributable profits, leading to dividend cuts and lower share prices, which willin turn impose higher pension contributions or even bigger deficits and lower profits. And so on until a crunch.
Officiaidom, praise be, is on the case. ln the UK a group of accountants, lawyers and other experts working, under JonathanRickford, former project director of the UK Company Law Review, has identified an urgent need for reform. Two civil servantsITomthe Department ofTrade and Industry are represented on the group, which is working under the aegis of the Company LawCentre at the British Institute Of International and Comparative Law. 1 hear that in a report next month they will calI for theexisting capital maintenance regime to be scrapped in favour of one imposing a certification of solvency, whereby directorswould be required publicly to state that they were satisfied the company was a going concern with a reasonable expectation ofmeeting its liabilities. Strict liability rules would attach to any failure to meet this standard.
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This is doable: it already exists in New Zealand. The difficulty is that it requires legislative change both in Europe anddomestically. Business should lobby furiously for reform, while thinking hard about the potential implications for its loancovenants. Investors should join În. Much is at stake in these technical but explosive issues of accountancy and law.
Question 2
Sur base des tableaux ci-joints extrait de L'Echo du 20janvier 2004, calculez le taux de change à terme de 3 moisentre l'euro (EUR) et la livre sterling (GBP)
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Question 3
a. Lorsqu'il est question de dette, expliquez le concept de subordination.b. Pourquoi est-ce que dans une opération de « tinancial buy-out », il est fait appel à des dettes de niveaux desubordination différents ?c. Quelles sont les deux manières qui peuvent être utilisées dans un opération de « fmancial buy-out » pour organiserla subordination des différents niveaux de dette?
