Exam 4: Bond Valuation

Which of the following statements is most correct?

A bond with a $100 annual interest payment with five years to maturity (not expected to default) would sell for a premium if interest rates were below 9 percent and would sell for a discount if interest rates were greater than 11 percent.

GP&L sold $1,000,000 of 12 percent, 30-year, semiannual payment bonds 15 years ago. The bonds are not callable, but they do have a sinking fund which requires GP&L to redeem 5 percent of the original face value of the issue each year ($50,000), beginning in Year 11. To date, 25 percent of the issue has been retired. The company can either call bonds at par for sinking fund purposes or purchase bonds on the open market, spending sufficient money to redeem 5 percent of the original face value each year. If the nominal yield to maturity (15 years remaining) on the bonds is currently 14 percent, what is the least amount of money GP&L must put up to satisfy the sinking fund provision?

One of the basic relationships in interest rate theory is that, other things held constant, for a given change in the required rate of return, the the time to maturity, the the change in price.

Which of the following statements is most correct?

Many bond indentures allow the company to acquire bonds for a sinking fund either by purchasing bonds in the market or by a lottery administered by the trustee for the purchase of a percentage of the issue through a call at face value.

You are the owner of 100 bonds issued by Euler, Ltd. These bonds have 8 years remaining to maturity, an annual coupon payment of $80, and a par value of $1,000. Unfortunately, Euler is on the brink of bankruptcy. The creditors, including yourself, have agreed to a postponement of the next 4 interest payments (otherwise, the next interest payment would have been due in 1 year). The remaining interest payments, for Years 5 through 8, will be made as scheduled. The postponed payments will accrue interest at an annual rate of 6 percent, and they will then be paid as a lump sum at maturity 8 years hence. The required rate of return on these bonds, considering their substantial risk, is now 28 percent. What is the present value of each bond?

You have just been offered a $1,000 par value bond for $847.88. The coupon rate is 8 percent, payable annually, and annual interest rates on new issues of the same degree of risk are 10 percent. You want to know how many more interest pay¬ments you will receive, but the party selling the bond cannot remember. Can you determine how many interest payments remain?

Which of the following statements is most correct?

An indexed bond has its value tied to an inflation index. As inflation increases the value of the bond increases and the issuer is responsible for the accumulated value which may become much greater than the original face value.

Rollincoast Incorporated issued BBB bonds two years ago that provided a yield to maturity of 11.5 percent. Long-term risk-free government bonds were yielding 8.7 percent at that time. The current risk premium on BBB bonds versus government bonds is half what it was two years ago. If the risk-free long-term governments are currently yielding 7.8 percent, then at what rate should Rollincoast expect to issue new bonds?

Typically, debentures have higher interest rates than mortgage bonds primarily because the mortgage bonds are backed by assets while debentures are unsecured.

The motivation for floating rate bonds arose out of the costly experience of the early 1980s when inflation pushed interest rates to very high levels causing sharp declines in the prices of long-term bonds.

Listed below are some provisions that are often contained in bond indentures: 1. Fixed assets may be used as security. 2) The bond may be subordinated to other classes of debt. 3) The bond may be made convertible. 4) The bond may have a sinking fund. 5) The bond may have a call provision. 6) The bond may have restrictive covenants in its indenture. Which of the above provisions, each viewed alone, would tend to reduce the yield to maturity investors would otherwise require on a newly issued bond?

A 12-year bond with a 10 percent semiannual coupon and a $1,000 par value has a nominal yield to maturity of 9 percent. The bond can be called in five years at a call price of $1,050. What is the bond's nominal yield to call?

McGriff Motors has bonds outstanding which will mature in 12 years. The bonds pay a 12 percent semiannual coupon and have a face value of $1,000 (i.e., the bonds pay a $60 coupon every six months). The bonds currently have a yield to maturity of 10 percent. The bonds are callable in 8 years and have a call price of $1,050. What are the bonds' yield to call?

Your client has been offered a 5-year, $1,000 par value bond with a 10 percent coupon. Interest on this bond is paid quarterly. If your client is to earn a nominal rate of return of 12 percent, compounded quarterly, how much should she pay for the bond?

A junk bond is a high risk, high yield debt instrument typically used to finance a leveraged buyout or a merger, or to provide financing to a company of questionable financial strength.

Which of the following events would make it more likely that a company would choose to call its outstanding callable bonds?

Assume that you are considering the purchase of a $1,000 par value bond that pays interest of $70 each six months and has 10 years to go before it matures. If you buy this bond, you expect to hold it for 5 years and then to sell it in the market. You (and other investors) currently require a nominal annual rate of 16 percent, but you expect the market to require a nominal rate of only 12 percent when you sell the bond due to a general decline in interest rates. How much should you be willing to pay for this bond?