Cherokee Plastics Corporation is formed by a group of investors to manufacture household plastic products. Their Initial capitalization goal is $50,000,000. That is, the incorporators have decided to raise $50,000,000 to aquire the initial assets of the company. They have narrowed down the financing mix alternatives to two: 1. All equity financing,

2.$20,000,000 in debt financing and $30,000,000 in equity financing.

No matter which financing alternative is chosen the corporation expects to be able to generate a 10% annual return, before payment of interest and income taxes on the $50,000,000 in assets acquired. The interest rate on debt would be 8%. The effective income tax rate will be approximately 50%.

Alternative 2 will require specified interest and principal payments to be made to the creditors at specfic dates. The Interest portion of these payments (interest expense) will reduce the taxable income of the corporation and hence the amount of income tax the corporation will pay. The all- equity alternative requires no specfied payments to be made to suppliers of capital. The corporation is not legally liable to make distrubutions to its owners. If the board of directors does decide to make a distrubution, it is not an expense of the corporation and does not reduce taxable income and hence the taxes the corporation pays.

Required:

1. Prepare abbreviated income statements that compare first-year profitablity for each of the two alternatives.

2. Which alternative would be expected to achieve the highest first-year profits? Why?

3. Which alternative would provide the highest rate of return on shareholders' equity? Why

4. What other related implications of the decision should be consisdered?