Financing the Toyota Recall

Financing the Toyota Recall.

INTRODUCTION

In May of 2006, The Toyota Motor Corporation initiated a recall of nearly one million vehicles around the world to replace faulty parts that could cause drivers to lose control of the steering wheel. The recall affected vehicles across 10 models, including the popular Prius. The intermediate shafts and sliding yokes in the recalled cars lacked the necessary strength and could distort or crack under strong pressure, causing drivers to lose control of the steering wheel, according to Toyota (ConsumerAffairs.Com). Owners of these vehicles were allowed to have these defects repaired at the cost of Toyota and required approximately on hour to complete (News.com.au).

BODY

Dealing with any recall is never a positive situation and our estimates are this particular recall will cost Toyota in excess of $925 million dollars. Toyota will most likely borrow from its future earnings at nominal discount rates. However, given Toyota’s positioning as the world’s eight largest and most profitable automobile company they will be able to take this problem in stride. The biggest danger associated with the recall will not be short term capitalization.

To maintain its impressive rate of growth Toyota will have to conduct effective public relations damage control in an attempt to safeguard its stellar reputation as a manufacturer of highly reliable automobiles. The Toyota Motor Corporation has been around for greater part of last century. It really started to make a strong entry in the North American and European car markets in the mid 1970’s. Their successful product offering combining low prices and high reliability have been huge factors in its successful profitable market-share growth ever since. Toyota Motor Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation and the world's second largest automaker making automobiles, trucks, buses and robots and providing financial services. Based in Toyota, Aichi, Japan, the company boasted a total vehicle production of 9.018 million vehicles in 2006. It is also the world's eighth largest company with revenue of $179 billion as of 2006. Toyota is the world's most profitable automaker Toyota sells its vehicles in Japan, North America, Europe and Asia. The company was founded in 1933 and is based in Toyota City, Japan." (Toyota)

Toyota is increasingly becoming a more dangerous competitive threat to European and North American car manufacturers. During the 1970’s their North American product line focused mainly on economy cars and pickup trucks. Today they are present in practically every key American automotive demographic with competing products. They also entered what was once the domain of the European luxury sedan manufacturers by introducing its line of luxury “Lexus” automobiles. Although American and European car manufacturers have improved their product reliability and they still have not managed to catch up with Toyota (Toyota).

Japanese and European automobile manufacturers benefit from a higher degree of degree of intra-governmental cooperation than their American counterparts. Many of the worker benefits provided by US auto manufacturers are provided to European and Japanese auto workers by their respective governments. Furthermore, Japanese and European corporations are more heavily subsidized than in North America. This allows them to operate at a higher rate of return and gives them access to more expansion and contingency capital which in situation like the aforementioned Toyota recall can come in quite handy (Toyota).

The costs of Japanese government subsidies to Toyota are passed onto Japanese and European citizens via higher income and sales taxes. This diminishes their purchasing power and negatively affects the size of their automobile markets. Despite some of its drawbacks, this system has given Toyota a significant competitive advantage abroad which it has been slowly building upon over the course of the past 50 years (Toyota).

Toyota has two primary methods with many underlying opportunities in each to finance the recall. The can utilize debt or equity financing. If they choose debt financing, they will need to generate capitol for the recall by borrowing the funds. These funds will likely be obtained from a bank or the owner. It is important to note they could seek help from the government given the size of the recall amount or even the general public via bond but these would be unlikely scenarios given there current cash position.

Essentially, debt financing offers Toyota loan opportunities to be considered a temporary investment with a stated return to the lenders. While the term may be long or short, and potentially rolled over, it is important to note this avenue