The chief executive officer (CEO) of Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd has just returned from a discussion at a leading university on the application of options to investment decisions and corporate value. He wants to understand how some of the ideas which were discussed can be applied to decisions made at Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd. He is still a little unclear about some of the discussion on options and their application, and wants further clarification on the following: I. Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd. is involved in the exploration and extraction of oil and gas. Recently there have been indications that there could be significant deposits of oil and gas just off the shores of Sarawak. The state government of Sarawak has invited companies to submit bids for the rights to commence the initial exploration of the area to assess the likelihood and amount of oil and gas deposits, with further extraction rights to follow. Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd is considering putting in a bid for the rights. The speaker leading the discussion suggested that using options as an investment assessment tool would be particularly useful to Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd in this respect. II. The speaker further suggested that options were useful in determining the value of equity and default risk and suggested that this was why companies facing severe financial distress could still have a positive equity value.

Required:

a) Discuss the different features of options.

b) With regard to (i) above, discuss how Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd may use the idea of options to help with the investment decision in bidding for the exploration rights, and explain the assumptions made when using the idea of options in making investment decisions.

c) With regard to (ii) above, discuss how options could be useful in determining the value of equity and default risk, and why companies facing severe financial distress still have positive equity values.