Ignoring differences in the useful lives of investments when evaluating capital expenditure alternatives can distort present value analysis.

Auniversity spent $1.8 million to install solar panels atop a parking garage. these panels will have a capacity of 400 kilowatts (kw) and have a life expectancy of 20 years. suppose that the discount rate is 20%, that electricity can be purchased at $0.10 per kilowatt-hour (kwh), and that the marginal cost of electricity production using the solar panels is zero. hint: it may be easier to think of the present value of operating the solar panels for 1 hour per year first. approximately how many hours per year will the solar panels need to operate to enable this project to break even? a. a.3,696.48 b.14,785.92 c.9,241.20 if the solar panels can operate only for 8,317 hours a year at maximum, the project (would/would not)break even?

You are chairman of the board of a successful technology firm. there is a nominal federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent, yet the effective tax rate of the typical corporation is about 12.6%. your firm has been clever with use of transfer pricing and keeping money abroad and has barely paid any taxes over the last 5 years; during this same time period, profits were $28 billion. one member of the board feels that it is un-american to use various accounting strategies in order to avoid paying taxes. others feel that these are legal loopholes and corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to minimize taxes. one board member quoted what the ceo of exxon once said: “i’m not a u.s. company and i don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the u.s.” what are the alternatives? what are your recommendations? why do you recommend this course of action?

You hold a diversified $100,000 portfolio consisting of 20 stocks with $5,000 invested in each. the portfolio's beta is 1.12. you plan to sell a stock with b = 0.90 and use the proceeds to buy a new stock with b = 1.50. what will the portfolio's new beta be? do not round your intermediate calculations.