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Silicon Valley Medical Technologies Case Study

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARYSilicon Valley Medical Technologies (SIVMED) was founded as a research and development firm. In the beginning, SIVMED performed its own basic research, obtained patents on promising technologies, and then either sold or licensed the technologies to other firms which marketed the products. The firm has since then grown and is now contracted to perform research and testing for larger genetic engineering firms, biotechnology firms, the US government, and is now widely recognized as the leader in an emerging growth industry. SIVMED's founders were relatively wealthy individuals when they started company, and they committed a great deal of their own funds to the venture. Their personal funds, however, were soon exhausted by the …show more content…

For this reason, new, or marginal, costs are used in its calculation. WACC is calculated by multiplying the cost of each capital component by its proportional weight and then summing then together. The capital components included in this calculation are a firms after-tax costs of debt, preferred stock, and common stock.

DebtThe first component of a firms WACC is its cost of debt. This is the effective rate that a company pays on its current debt. Because interest expenses on debt are deductible, the after-tax cost is used in its calculation. Cost of debt is calculated by multiplying the before-tax rate by one minus the marginal tax rate. As given in the Silicon Valley case assignment handout, SIVMED's long-term debt consists of 9.5% coupon, semiannual payment bonds with 15 years to maturity. The bonds last traded at a price of $891.00 per $1,000 par value bond. Given this data, SIVMED's cost of debt is calculated at 6.6% .

It is often questionable as to whether flotation costs are included in the calculation of a firms cost of debt. Flotation costs are the costs associated with the issuance of new securities. These costs should be included in this calculation. For debt, however, this value is usually ignored because it is very small and does not have a significant affect on the outcome of the calculation. Also, when

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