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Offices Ltd . is a construction company focused on office space, which in the past had a large market capitalisation and turnover, but, after the

Offices Ltd. is a construction company focused on office space, which in the past had a large market capitalisation and turnover, but, after the recent pandemic, finds itself struggling to recover to its past stature in the construction industry due to the lower demand for office space. The company has, over the past few years sold off all its subdivisions and is now focussed solely on its core competency of building offices.
Demand for new offices has remained subdued since 2020, however, there is still enough demand for the company to stay afloat. The management of Offices Ltd (from hereon, management) believes that the company can operate in this environment and return healthy profits due to its experienced staff. Management believes in the turnaround plan and the prospects of the company and is sure that it will return to being a large competitor in its industry, however, it is not expected that the company will return to its size pre the pandemic. Due to low demand, the company is cash poor and management wishes to raise more funds to implement the proposed turn-around plan, which is based around reducing debt repayments (lowering financial leverage) and focusing on their core competency.
Below follows some financial information regarding the company:
Current number of shares in issue: 200000000
Current share price: 30c
Current capital structure: Assets = R200000000; Liabilities= R100000000; Equity = R100000000
Current EBIT (operating profit)= R20000000
Current interest expense = R12000000
Tax rate: 27%
Current beta: 1.9
Risk free rate: 8%
Market risk premium: 5%
The company has had to incur a lot of debt to stay afloat and is planning a rights issue to raise funds to repay some of its debts and to implement its turn-around plan. Management estimates that it needs R20000000 over and above any retained earnings to implement the turnaround plan while they wish to lower its debt by R50000000 to bring about better profitability due to reduced interest payments, together with more future flexibility. It is not expected that EBIT would change for the foreseeable future and that any effect of the turn-around plan would only be felt later. The company will, immediately, use R50000000 to retire debt to that amount, while the R20000000 for the turn-around plan would be kept as cash initially. The interest payment is expected to fall in line (proportionally) with the reduction in the amount of debt.
a) Determine the amount of funding that the company requires and the number of rights the company would have to issue if it is assumed that transaction and related costs amount to 10% of the value of each right issued, while it is expected that the issue will be fully taken up and the price of a right is set to 25c.(4 Marks)

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