To be profitable, a firm has to recover its costs. These costs include both its fixed and its variable costs. One way that a firm evaluates at what stage it would recover the invested costs is to calculate how many units or how much in dollar sales is necessary for the firm to earn a profit.

Blue Mouse Manufacturers is considering a project that will have fixed costs of $15,000,000. The product will be sold for $37.50 per unit, and will incur a variable cost of $12.80 per unit.

1. Given the cost structure of Blue Mouse, it will have to sell _____? ($304,105, $341,333, $607,287, or $121,642) units to break even on this project (QBEQBE).

Marketing sales director of Blue Mouse Manufacturers doesnt think that the market for the firms goods is big enough to sell enough units to make the companys target operating profit of $20,000,000. In fact, she believes that the firm will be able to sell only about 200,000 units. However, she also thinks the demand for Blue Mouses product is relatively inelastic, so the firm can increase the sale price.

2. Assuming that Blue Mouse can sell 200,000 units, what price must it set to meet the CFOs EBIT goal of $20,000,000?

A) $215.97 per unit

B) $197.19 per unit

C) $234.75 per unit

D) $187.80 per unit

What affects the firms operating break-even point?

3. Several factors affect a firms operating break-even point. Based on the scenarios described in the following table, indicate whether these factors would increase, decrease, or leave unchanged a firms break-even quantityassuming that only the listed factor changes and all other relevant factors remain constant.

	Increase	Decrease	No Change
The firm depreciates its fixed assets more quickly over a shorter life.
The products sales price increases.
The amount of debt increases, causing the firms total interest expense to increase.

4. When a large percentage of a firms costs are fixed, the firm is said to have a _____? (High, low) degree of operating leverage.