As part of the settlement for a class action lawsuit, Hoxworth Corporation must provide sufficient cash to make the following annual payments (in thousands of dollars): Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 Payment 175 230 300 320 350 480 The annual payments must be made at the beginning of each year. The judge will approve an amount that, along with earnings on its investment, will cover the annual payments. Investment of the funds will be limited to savings (at 4.05% annually) and government securities, at prices and rates currently quoted in The Wall Street Journal. Hoxworth wants to develop a plan for making the annual payments by investing in the following securities (par value = $1000). Funds not invested in these securities will be placed in savings. Security Current Price Rate (%) Years to Maturity 1 $1,025 6.25 3 2 $1,000 5.125 4 Assume that interest is paid annually. The plan will be submitted to the judge and, if approved, Hoxworth will be required to pay a trustee the amount that will be required to fund the plan.
(a) Use linear programming to find the minimum cash settlement necessary to fund the annual payments. Let F = total funds required to meet the six years of payments G1 = units of government security 1 G2 = units of government security 2 Si = investment in savings at the beginning of year i Note: All decision variables are expressed in thousands of dollars. If required, round your answers to five decimal places. For subtractive or negative numbers use a minus sign even if there is a + sign before the blank. (Example: -300)
(b) Use the shadow price to determine how much more Hoxworth should be willing to pay now to reduce the payment at the beginning of year 6 to $400,000.
(c) Use the shadow price to determine how much more Hoxworth should be willing to pay to reduce the year 1 payment to $150,000. Hoxworth should be willing to p