Hasco Corp. is a multinational provider of lumber and milling equipment. Currently, Hasco’s equity cost of capital is 13% and its borrowing cost is 7%. Hasco has a target leverage ratio of 35%. Hasco starts a new project which is developing a GPS-based inventory tracking system, which will be a separate division in Hasco. Management views the risk of this investment as similar to that of other technology companies’ investment. Suppose Hasco plans to finance the new division using 15% of debt financing (a constant debt value ratio of 15%) with a borrowing cost 8%, and its corporate tax rate is 35%. You have the following information about the comparable company to the new Hasco’s technology investment. (Comparable company: leverage ratio 20%, cost of equity 14%, cost of debt 10%, tax rate = 35%.)
• Estimate the cost of capital of Hasco Corp (using traditional WACC equation)
• Estimate the cost of capital of the new investment (using the two different equations for the cost of capital, which are traditional WACC equation and project based WACC equation.