Merger and acquisition strategies a. are nearly always superior alternatives to forming alliances or partnerships with these same companies. b. are a particularly effective way of pursuing a blue-ocean strategy and an outsourcing strategy. c. may offer considerable cost-saving opportunities and can also be beneficial in helping a company try to invent a new industry. d. seldom are superior alternatives to forming alliances with these same companies because of the financial drain of using the company's cash resources to accomplish the merger or acquisition. e. are one of the best ways for helping a company strongly differentiate its product offering and use a differentiation strategy to strengthen its market position.

Aquatic marine stores company manufactures special metallic materials and decorative fittings for luxury yachts that require highly skilled labor. aquatic uses standard costs to prepare its flexible budget. for the first quarter of the year, direct materials and direct labor standards for one of their popular products were as follows: direct materials: 3 pounds per unit; $ 6 per pound direct labor: 4 hours per unit; $ 19 per hour during the first quarter, aquatic produced 5 comma 000 units of this product. actual direct materials and direct labor costs were $ 65 comma 000 and $ 330 comma 000, respectively. for the purpose of preparing the flexible budget, calculate the total standard direct materials cost at a production volume of 5 comma 000 units.

Afirm's before-tax cost of debt, rd, is the interest rate that the firm must pay on debt. because interest is tax deductible, the relevant cost of debt used to calculate a firm's wacc is the cost of debt, rd (1 – t). the cost of debt is used in calculating the wacc because we are interested in maximizing the value of the firm's stock, and the stock price depends on cash flows. it is important to emphasize that the cost of debt is the interest rate on debt, not debt because our primary concern with the cost of capital is its use in capital budgeting decisions. the rate at which the firm has borrowed in the past is because we need to know the cost of capital. for these reasons, the on outstanding debt (which reflects current market conditions) is a better measure of the cost of debt than the . the on the company's -term debt is generally used to calculate the cost of debt because more often than not, the capital is being raised to fund -term projects. quantitative problem: 5 years ago, barton industries issued 25-year noncallable, semiannual bonds with a $1,600 face value and a 8% coupon, semiannual payment ($64 payment every 6 months). the bonds currently sell for $845.87. if the firm's marginal tax rate is 40%, what is the firm's after-tax cost of debt? round your answer to 2 decimal places. do not round intermediate calcu

Suppose either computers or televisions can be assembled with the following labor inputs: units produced 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 total labor used 3 7 12 18 25 33 42 54 70 90 (a) draw the production possibilities curve for an economy with 54 units of labor. label it p54. (b) what is the opportunity cost of the eighth computer? (c) suppose immigration brings in 36 more workers. redraw the production possibilities curve to reflect this added labor. label the new curve p90.