Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2003 / Paper 1 / 2 / a / ii

For fixed real $a$, the base is positive for all sufficiently large positive $x$. Take its logarithm and use the Taylor expansion $\ln (1-u)=-u+O(u^2)$:Continuity of the exponential function then gives $\boxed{\underset{x\to \infty }{\lim }(1-a/x{)}^x=e^{-a}}$. This includes $a=0$.