Opportunity Landscaping Inc. (Opportunity) appreciated your assistance in preparing their 2018 Federal income tax return. As a result, they have come to you for advice on acquiring new facilities for their manufacturing operations. They plan to take access to their new facilities on January 2, 2020.

The corporation has the opportunity to purchase an appropriate facility in suburban Chicago for $90,000,000 ($87,000,000 for the factory building; $3,000,000 for the land). If they purchase the facility, they would finance the acquisition via a 15-year mortgage at 3.5% interest with a $18,000,000 down payment (due at closing on January 2, 2020). The mortgage would be payable annually in arrears (i.e., the first mortgage payment would be due January 2, 2021). Real property taxes on the facility in 2020 would be $1,000,000 (the property taxes are also due annually in arrears with 2020 taxes due on January 2, 2021). Further, Opportunity estimates that property taxes will increase annually at a rate of 3% in years subsequent to 2020.

As an alternative, a local real estate investor has offered to purchase the facility and lease it to the corporation. The investor would require Opportunity to sign a 7-year non-cancelable lease. The first lease payment of $3,700,000 would be due on January 2, 2020. Lease payments will increase by 4% each year during the term of the lease with the final lease payment due on January 2, 2026. In addition, the lease would require a refundable deposit of $1,850,000 (payment due on January 2, 2020) against significant damages to the facility; this deposit will be refunded to the corporation on January 2, 2027 (when the occupancy ends and assuming that there are no significant damages).

Opportunity must decide whether to lease or buy the facility. In order to make a proper decision, the corporation will assume that it could sell the facility (building and land) on January 2, 2027 for $100,000,000. Under this scenario, they would make their final mortgage and property tax payments on January 2, 2027 and then sell the facility.

Opportunitys Federal corporate tax rate is 21% and it uses a 7% discount rate to compute the present value of its future cash flows. For purposes of this analysis, assume that all cash flows occur at the beginning of the respective year.

Required:

1. Based on the above facts, which option (lease or buy) minimizes Opportunitys after-tax cost of obtaining the facility?

2. The local real estate investor has provided an option for Opportunity to consider. Under this option, a payment of $12,000,000 is due on January 2, 2020. If this payment is made, no deposit is required and the payment is deemed to cover the first three years of the lease. On January 2, 2023, lease payments resume with a $4,000,000 lease payment due (and a 4% increase in the lease payment each year for the remainder of the lease term). Is this an alternative that Opportunity should consider? Read and apply the materials in text Section 6-2d as part of your analysis.

3. Opportunitys CFO is not certain that the current 21% Federal tax rate will be maintained over the next seven years. She feels that an increase in the Federal rate to around 30% is likely at some point in the near term. As a result, she would like to know how your analysis would be affected if the Federal income tax rate increased to 30% on January 1, 2025.

Our professor has given us checkpoints and the NPV for the lease option is $19,516,098. I am confused on how to figure out the NPV for the buy option. I was able to compute the annual mortgage payment amounts, $6,251,405. In my professors hints he stated: "Then, you can move to the Buy Option. Start by identifying the annual cash inflows and outflows if the corporation decides to buy the property. For example, the annual cash outflows would include both the down payment (in 2020) and the annual mortgage payments (from 2021 to 2027). And, cash inflows, would include the tax savings from the interest expense on the mortgage (which is deductible)." He also hinted that we need to figure out the MACRS depreciation to find the NPV. Also for number 2, Im not sure on how to approach it/