CFA CFA Level 1 Question of the Week – Corporate Finance

Question of the Week – Corporate Finance

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        Komelech Design is an advertisement agency, with 40% of its financing debt, 40% equity, and 20% preferred stock. Komelech’s cost of preferred stock is 5%, cost of equity is 9%, and before-tax cost of debt is 4%. If the marginal tax rate decreases from 40% to 35%, it can be best described that Inturnal’s weighted average cost of capital:

        • Increases by 0.10%
        • Decreases by 0.10%
        • Remains the same
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          The formula to use is:

          WACC = w_d * r_d * (1 – t) + w_p * r_p + w_e * r_e

          And we have:

          w_d = 0.4

          w_p = 0.2

          w_e = 0.4

          r_d = 0.04

          r_p = 0.05

          r_e = 0.09

          t = 0.4

          So, the WACC before the change in tax rate is:

          WACC = 0.4 * 0.04 * (1 – 0.4) + 0.2 * 0.05 + 0.4 * 0.09 =
          5.56%

          At the new rate, we have t = 0.35, so the WACC after the
          change in tax rate is:

          WACC = 0.4 * 0.04 * (1 – 0.35) + 0.2 * 0.05 + 0.4 * 0.09 =
          5.64%

          The WACC increases by 0.08%.


          Note that we don’t need to do this entire calculation twice
          if we didn’t want to, since the only variable is the change in the debt
          component. All we needed to do is calculate:

          Change in WACC = w_d * r_d * (t_old – t_new) = 0.4 * 0.04 *
          (0.40 – 0.35) = 0.08%.

          We know that this is an increase because taxes decrease the
          cost of capital, so a tax cut would increase the cost of capital.

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