Risk and Rates of Return

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 9.0, Maastricht University (SBE), course: Intermediate Financial Management, language: English, abstract: In 1996, Northern Electric and Mid-Continent Gas merged into the North Central Utilities (NCU) since both companies were convinced that future success is dependent on the provision of an entire set of energy sources. Furthermore the merger put both firms in a better position compared to their competitors, especially in view of the fact that in 1996, regulatory changes empowered companies to compete for business in other firm's territories. Beforehand, competition basically did not exist and the profits were determined easily. Companies knew the amount of capital invested, the cost of capital and the product of those two demonstrated the profits, which had to be generated. In the following case, several questions will be answered to the changing conditions in the utility industry....