Universal Health Care (UHC) is a company whose stock price has declined by 40% in the past year. In the current year, UHC earned \($300\) million in pretax operating income on revenues of \($10\) billion. The new CEO of the firm has proposed cost-cutting measures she anticipates will save the firm \($100\) million in expenses, without any effect on revenues.

Assume the firm is growing at a stable rate of 5% a year and that its cost of capital is 10%; neither number is expected to change as a consequence of the cost cutting. The firm’s tax rate is 40%. (You can assume that the firm reinvests \($100\) million each year and that this reinvestment will not change as the firm cuts costs.)

a. What effect will the cost cutting have on value?

b. What effect will the cost cutting have on value if the expected growth rate will drop to 4.5% as a consequence? (Some of the costs cut were designed to generate future growth.)