CCRA Online Practice Questions and Answers

Case Facts as on March 31, 2012

Mark Construction Company (MCC) has bagged a contract for construction of a large dam and hydro power project on river Shivna in Madhya Pradesh (MP). The project is also of relevance from the irrigation perspective due to its location and as per the agreement MCC will have to undertake construction of web of canals, approach road to dam, power house and other ancillary units. MCC is promoted by Mr. Thomas Mark, who is a MP from the ruling party which recently formed government in MP. Historically, MCC has been engaged into construction of rural roads, small bridges and railway platforms on contract basis for the Government. MCC will have a separate special purpose vehicle (SPV) floated for this venture.

The hydro power project comes under the public private partnership scheme of the Government of MP, where in the private partner builds owns operates and transfers (BOOT) the hydro power plant. The detailed terms of the hydro power project agreement are as follows:

1.

The construction of the dam, canals and hydro power plant shall be undertaken by the contractor. The Government of MP will have to acquire land which will submerge on construction of dam and shall rehabilitate the owners of land.

2.

MCC shall have right to operate the hydro power project from date of commencement of commercial operations (DCCO) for a period of 20 years and shall transfer the project to Government thereafter. Further, SPV shall be tax exempt for a period of five years from DCCO i.e. FY17-FY21.

3.

The power project is of 600 megawatts (MW) shall comprise 4 units of 150 MW each. The estimated cost of project is about INR3, 500 Million to be spent over a period of 4 year(s) the project is estimated to be commercially operational by April 1, 2016 with two units operational om same day and one unit each will be operational on April 1, 2017 and April 1, 2018.

4.

Means of finance:

Means of Finance INR Million Government Aid (To be classified as Equity) 500Equity 900 Debt 2100

5. Amount if expenditure estimated in various years is as follows: Funding Cost of Project INR Million Debt Govt Aid Equity Total FY13 (April to march) 700 0 250 450 700 FY14 1200 500 250 450 1200 FY15 1200 1200 - 1200 FY15 400 400 - 400

Debt shall bear a fixed rate of interest of 10% and all interest till DCCO shall be added to the principal. The expected principal along with capitalized interest is expected to be INR2, 400 Million (i.e.INR2100 Million debt plus INR300 Million capitalized interest). The repayment of the same shall be in 12 equated annual installments starting from FY17.

Brief projections for the period of FY17 to FY21 are given below: Developments as on March 31, 2015

The project manager for the SPV made following comments at a press conferee on March 31, 2015:

As you all are aware, we were running bang on schedule till we last met on December 21, 2014. From today we are just left with one more year to complete the project in time. However, the flash floods which struck our dam site on this March 15, 2015 have created havoc in the region. I shall not point out the loss of lives in the region as you all are well aware of those. Our project has also been badly hit due to the same and we have been assessing the damage over the last one week. After analyzing damage, we have made changes in project schedule. Now we will be making only one unit of 150 MW operational on April 1, 2016 and 1 unit each will be added in each of subsequent year(s).

Development as on September 30, 2015 Post the flash floods, lot of environmentalists started raising issues of changes in environment due to construction of large number of dams. A few Public Interest Litigations (PILs) have been filed in various courts.

Honorable High Court of MP on September 27, 2015, banned construction of any dams in the region and banned permissions for new dams till next hearing scheduled on November 30, 2015. MCC in its press release has indicated that they will apply to the higher court on the matter.

As a credit analyst on March 31, 2012, which of the following sets of risks are you going to put in your credit appraisal note?

A. Off-take risk, Cost and Time over run risk, lack of management experience in such big projects.

B. Lack of management experience in large projects, Exchange rate risks, Cost and time over run risks.

C. Cost and Time over run risk, lack of management experience in such big projects.

D. Obsolete technology risk, political risks and Cost and time over run risks

Scott is a credit analyst with one of the credit rating agencies in India. He was looking in Oil and Gas Industry companies and has presented brief financials for following 4 entities: Giving equal weightage to all three ratios, determine which of the above entities should be rated highest on a relative scale.

A. C Ltd

B. A Ltd

C. D Ltd

D. B Ltd

Ms. Mary Brown is a credit rating analyst. She had prepared a detailed report on one of her client, FlyHigh Airlines Ltd, a company operating chartered aircrafts in India. As she was heading for a meeting with her superior on the matter, coffee spilled over her set of prepared paper(s). As she was getting late for meeting, instead of preparing entire set she could recollect few numbers from her memory and reconstructed following partial financial table:

Compute growth in PAT for FY12?

A. 25%

B. 19%

C. 22%

D. 21%

"Following four entities operate in the Indian IT and BPO space. They all are into same segment of providing off-shore analytical services. They all operate on the labour cost-arbitrage in India and the countries of their clients. Following information pertains for the year ended March 31, 2013.

The year FY13, was typically a good year for Indian IT companies. For FY14, the economic analysts have given following predictions about the IT Industry:

A. It is expected that INR will appreciate sharply against other USD.

B. Given high inflation and attrition in IT Industry in India, the wages of IT sector employees will increase more sharply than Inflation and general wage rise in country.

C. US Congress will be passing a bill which restricts the outsourcing to third world countries like India. While analyzing the four entities, you come across following findings related to Glowing:

Glowing is promoted by Mr.M R Bhutta, who has earlier promoted two other business ventures, He started with ABC Entertainment Ltd in 1996 and was promoter and MD of the company. ABC was a listed entity and its share price had sharp movements at the time of stock market scam in late 1990s. In 1999, Mr. Bhutta sold his entire stake and resigned from the post of MD. The stock price declined by about 90% in coming days and has never recovered. Later on in 2003, Mr. Bhutta again promoted a new business, Klear Publications Ltd (KCL) an in the business of magazine publication. The entity had come out with a successful IPO and raised money from public. Thereafter it ran into troubles and reported losses. In 2009, Mr. Bhutta went on to exit this business as well by selling stake to other promoter(s). There have been reports in both instances with allegations that promoters have siphoned off money from listed entities to other group entities, however, nothing has been proved in any court."

Based on your findings in the case of Glowing, how will you handle the same as a credit rating analyst:

A. Be more cautious and skeptical on any information received from Glowing and give negative marks in management risk and use it as an overriding factor to lower the credit ratings.

B. Any of the three.

C. Deny taking up assignment for Glowing.

D. One needs to check only the corporate governance aspect of the Glowing and the past same should not have any bearing on Glowing.

Satish Dhawan, a veteran fixed income trader is conducting interviews for the post of a junior fixed income trader. He interviewed four candidates Adam, Balkrishnan, Catherine and Deepak and following are the answers to his questions. Q-1: Tell something about Option Adjusted Spread

Adam: OAS is applicable only to bond which do not have any options attached to it. It is for the plain bonds.

Balkishna: In bonds with embedded options, AS reflects not only the credit risk but also reflects prepayment risk over and above the benchmark.

Catherine: Sincespreads are calculated to know the level of credit risk in the bound, OAS is difference between in the Z spread and price of a call option for a callable bond.

Deepark: For callable bond OAS will be lower than Z Spread.

Q-2: This is a spread that must be added to the benchmark zero rate curve in a parallel shift so that the sum of the risky bond's discounted cash flows equals its current market price. Which Spread I am talking about?

Adam: Z Spread

Balkrishna: Nominal Spread Catherine: Option Adjusted Spread Deepark: Asset Swap Spread Q-3: What do you know about Interpolated spread and yield spread?

Adam: Yield spread is the difference between the YTM of a risky bond and the YTM of an on-the-run treasury benchmark bond whose maturity is closest, but not identical to that of risky bond. Interpolated spread is the spread between the YTM of risky bond and the YTM of same maturity treasury benchmark, which is interpolated from the two nearest on-the-run treasury securities.

Balkrishna: Interpolated spread is preferred to yield spread because the latter has the maturity mismatch, which leads to error if the yield curve is not flat and the benchmark security changes over time, leading to inconsistency.

Catherine: Interpolated spread takes account the shape of the benchmark yield curve and therefore better than yield spread.

Deepak: Both Interpolated Spread and Yield Spread rely on YTM which suffers from drawbacks and inconsistencies such as the assumption of flat yield curve and reinvestment at YTM itself.

Then Satish gave following information related to the benchmark YTMs:

Who amongst the four candidates is correct regarding OAS?

A. Only Catherine

B. Only Deepak

C. Only Adam and Catherine

D. Only Deepak and Catherine

If you yield curve is humped and the medium rates drop, what will happen to the yield curve?

A. It will move from negative to positive

B. It will shift up in a uniform fashion

C. It will become steeper

D. It will flatten

In an industry there are only 20 firms and each of them has equal share. Compute Herfindahl Hirschman Index and state the level of concentration in the industry.

A. HHI = 500; High Concentration

B. HHI = 8000; low Concentration

C. HHI = 8000; High Concentration

D. HHI = 500; Low Concentration

Which of the following is a factor considered while evaluating resources profile for rating of bank?

A. Size and growth of deposits

B. All of the three

C. Deposit composition and stickiness

D. Geographic distribution of deposits

The extension of a guarantee by company A to company B can lower the rating of___________

A. Company B

B. Both A and B

C. Guarantee has no impact on ratings of company A and company B

D. Company A

Project 1: Company X has a sugar mill at Philadelphia and is replicating same at Toronto.

Project 2: Company Y has a sugar mill at Philadelphia and is increasing capacity from 100000 MT to

140000 MT per annum.

What type of projects are Project 1 and Project 2?

A. Project 1: Diversification; Project 2: Forward Integration

B. Project 1: Expansion; Project 2: Forward Integration

C. Project 1: Diversification; Project 2: Expansion

D. Project 1: Expansion; Project 2: Expansion