Continental Carriers, Inc. (CCI) should take on the long-term debt to finance the acquisition of Midland Freight, Inc. for a few reasons.
The company is heavy on assets, the debt ratio will only grow to 0.40 with the added $50M in debt. Also, the firm will benefit from an added $2M in a tax shield and be able to return $12.7M a year to its stockholders and investors, instead of $8.9M if equity is raised to finance the acquisition. Lastly, the stock price and earnings per share will increase to $3.87 in comparison to an equity-financed acquisition of $2.72 per share. CCI would be taking a somewhat high risk by issuing additional stock due to the uncertainty about the offering price. Having a low P/E ratio with respect to the rest of the market, and the replacement cost of the firm being greater than its book value (argument 3), there is a good chance that the current stock price and the proposed offering prices are too low.

Although long-term debt is a better financing choice a few of the drawbacks are pointed out. Debt holders claim profit before equity holders, so the chance that profits may be lower than expected, increases risk to equity may reduce or impede stock value. However, in extreme financial situations such as a recession period, CCI would still be able to increase its cash during a recession period with all debt capital structure. Also, there is a remaining 12.5 million that would have to be paid at the expiration of the bonds, but that could be paid off by issuing new bonds or additional equity at that time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continental Carriers Inc is a trucking company which specialises in transporting general commodities. Since its establishment in 1952 the company operates within the district of the Pacific Coast and from Chicago to