Roybus, Inc., a manufacturer of flash memory, just reported that its main production facility in Taiwan was destroyed in a fire. Although the plant was fully insured, the loss of production will decrease Roybus's free cash flow by $175 million at the end of this year and by $61 million at the end of next year. a. If Roybus has 37 million shares outstanding and a weighted average cost of capital of 12.6%, what change in Roybus's stock price would you expect upon this announcement? (Assume that the value of Roybus's debt is not affected by the event.) b. Would you expect to be able to sell Roybus stock on hearing this announcement and make a profit? Explain.

a) the fire and all the events that are related to it should decrease Roybus's stock by $5.50

b) The market is pretty quick to adjust to bad news, specially when they are single isolated events. There is a minimum chance that you might be able to make some money by selling your stocks to someone that hasn't heard about the fire and its negative consequences (not a regular trader or outside the market), but it would be extremely rare for it to happen. When such extraordinary events happen, it is common for stocks to be traded after market hours, so when the market opens the next day, the price will already be adjusted.

Explanation:

the total decrease in Roybus's market value = ($175,000,000 / 1.126) + ($61,000,000 / 1.126²) = $155,417,407 + $48,111,960 = $203,529,367

the decrease will negatively affect stock price by -$203,529,367 / 37,000,000 stocks = -$5.50 per stock

answer; functional fixedness;