Jason has the opportunity to purchase a new piece of equipment for his factory. He wants to calculate the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) for his current operations. Long terms borrowings make up 40% of the business's capital. The applicable interest rate paid for this is 7% per annum. The current tax rate that the business pays is 30%. The business is listed on the ASX and information from Bloomberg has calculated that the Beta for it (and other similar listed businesses) is 0.8. Bloomberg also states that the Market Risk Premium is 2% and the Government Bond Rate (risk free rate) is 1%. a. Calculate the cost of Debt Capital for the business (allow for the tax deductibility of the debt). (1 mark) b. Assuming that his business has only ordinary shares, calculate the cost of Equity Capital for the business. (1 mark) c. With your answers in a. and b. calculate the current WACC for Jason's business that should be used when onsidering new purchases of equipment. (2 marks) d. If the returns generated by purchasing the new piece of equipment equate to an 6.0% payback, should Jason go ahead with the investment? Why?
