Purchase Area Telecom (PAT) is independently owned and operates in the area west of the Land between the Lakes region in Western Kentucky. The company provides cellular service to customers in several adjacent communities, and it works with other companies to cellular services to customers in remote areas. In recent years, the population of the area served by the company had grown rapidly. Because of this growth, company personnel and equipment had been hard pressed to meet the demands for building and maintaining new cellular equipment. For a time the company had used an outside contractor to handle overload work, but several poor experiences had caused abandonment of that practice. It was obvious that the company needed a significant upgrade in various aspects of its cellular network. The need to upgrade its facilities arose at a critical period for the company. PAT has already made heavy commitments to purchase equipment needed to improve service. Recent payments for equipment had strained the net working capital position of the firm. Stockholders were unable to provide additional resources and hoped to avoid selling additional shares which would dilute their ownership. Interest rates were quoted at 9%, but it hoped to avoid unnecessary borrowing since the firm had been earning only about 10% on its net assets (this can also be assumed to be its current weighted average cost of capital) During the summer Meagan Foreman, general manager of PAT, requested bids for the cellular equipment from four dealers. The lowest bid received was from Reliable Technologies, which quoted a total cash price of $37,500,000. As an alternative, Reliable would lease the equipment to PAT for five years at an annual rate of $9,000.000 The equipment was expected to last for five years, at which time it could probably be sold for about $6,000,000. 1f purchased, the equipment would be depreciated as a five-year asset following the MACRS methodology. If the equipment were leased, PAT would have to pay the annual lease charge on or before the first day of each year. In addition, it would be responsible for all operating and maintenance costs except for software upgrades, which Reliable would provide. The cost of annually upgrading the software would normally be $1,350,000 per year, beginning in the second year of operation. (For simplicity assume the annual upgrade costs would be made at the end of each year) Ms. Foreman was unsure how to view the alternatives presented by Reliable Technologies. Leasing the equipment would reduce the immediate demands on PAT's financial resources. Still, the prospect of paying $45,000,000 over five years when the equipment could be purchased n for $37,500,000 raised questions about how well she would be serving company stockholders if she recommended leasing rather than purchasing the equipment. On the other hand, the operating expenses and lease payments would be allowable expense deductions in calculating income for tax purposes. Since the company had been paying and expected to continue paying income taxes of 40%, the effective cost of operating the equipment would be minimal. 1. Should the company buy or lease the new equipme 2. Redo your analysis by assuming that all cash flows (cost of software upgrades, tax benefits depreciation) are expected to occur (accrue) evenly throughout the year (use the mid-year approximation formula). The lone exceptions are the lease payments (made at the beginning of each year), and the equipment purchase and salvage (made at time 0 and received at the end of Year 5, respectively). How do these new assumptions affect your recommendation