Capital structure for Diageo

Introduction and Background Diageo was formed in 1997 through the merger of two consumer product companies Grand Metropolitan plc and Guinness plc under the strategy of reducing costs through marketing synergies, cutting overhead expenses and increasing production and purchasing efficiencies. The new merger wanted to concentrate solely on the beverage alcohol business, so it sold its packaged foods (Pillsbury) and fast food (Burger King) businesses. While the mandate for Managing for Value came from the highest …

…the model took on new debt to attend the deficit. This model does not include the possibility of selling current assets in order to attend deficit problems. The team took into account local EBIT (assets x ROA), interest rates (based on different possible ratings), foreign exchange fluctuations, and market correlations (assumed that correlations were constant between random variables) as risk factors. This model seems to cover the most important risk factors that Diageo might face.