F3 Exam Dumps : Financial Strategy

A – Retained earnings: When you value equity by discounting cash flows to equity, the result already represents the total value of equity. You don’t then add book retained earnings on top – that would double-count equity.

B – Deducting $400m for the bond: With a FCFE valuation you do not deduct the value of debt at all – the cash flows are already after interest and principal. So deducting the bond is wrong, and in any case they used nominal value ($400m) instead of market value ($380m).

C – Using WACC: Cash flows to equity must be discounted at the cost of equity, not at WACC. WACC is used only when discounting free cash flow to the firm.

Using cash flows to equity (D) is fine, and deducting replacement capex (E) is correct because only free cash after maintaining assets belongs to shareholders.

The company is repurchasing and cancelling its own shares.

When shares are cancelled:

Share capital is reduced by the nominal value of the shares bought back. ✅

Any amount paid above nominal value reduces equity reserves (such as share premium and/or retained earnings), but it does not go through the Income Statement.

Total equity does decrease by the full repurchase amount (so option C is wrong).

No element of the repurchase (including any “premium to market value”) is treated as an expense in the Income Statement under IFRS – it’s purely an equity transaction (so D is wrong).

Option A is too specific and not strictly correct, because the premium over nominal is not necessarily all charged only to retained earnings – it can also be charged to share premium / other reserves.

So the one fully correct statement is:

B. The share capital figure would reduce by the nominal value of the shares purchased.

Competition authorities focus primarily on market structure and competition, not on whether the bid is generous or on employment promises. Their concern is: Will this merger substantially lessen competition?

In food retailing, a key issue is local market concentration – for example, a single group owning too many supermarkets in particular towns or regions. A classic remedy is for the bidder to divest overlapping outlets so that effective competition remains.

B. Agreeing to dispose of specified outlets which overlap geographically directly addresses the competition authority’s main concern and is the standard structural remedy used in practice.

A (more cash) is irrelevant to competition issues.

C (job guarantees) is mainly a political/employment concern, not an antitrust one.

D (promise to pass on cost savings) is difficult to monitor and enforce and is normally viewed as less credible than structural remedies.

So the action most likely to persuade the competition authorities is B.