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SYLLABUS: Financing decision Cost of Capital - Cost of specific sources of capital Equity
-Preferred stock debt reserves - weighted average cost of capital, Operating leverage and
Financial Leverage.
COST OF CAPITAL
The term Cost of Capital refers to the minimum rate of return a firm must earn on its
investments so that the market value of the companys equity shares does not fall. This is possible
only when the firm earns a return on the projects financed by the equity shareholders funds at a
rate at which is at a rate which is at least equal to the rate of return expected by them. If a firm fails
to earn return at the expected rate, the market value of the shares would fall and thus result in
reduction of overall wealth of the shareholders.
DEFINITION
A firms cost of capital may be defined, as the rate of return the firm requires from
investment in order to increase the value of the firm in the market place.
IMPORTANCE OF COST OF CAPITAL
The determination of Cost of Capital is important from the point of view of both capital
budgeting as well as capital planning decisions.
(a)CAPITAL BUDGETING DECISIONS:
In Capital budgeting decisions, the cost of capital is often used as a discount rate on the
basis of which the firms future cash flows are discounted to find out their present values. Thus, the
cost of capital is the very basis for financial appraisal of new capital expenditure proposals.
(b)CAPITAL STRUCTURE DECISIONS:
The finance manager must raise capital from different sources in a way that optimises the
risk and cost factors. The sources of funds, which have less cost, involve high. Therefore, It is
necessary that cost of each source of funds is carefully considered and compared with the risk
involved in it.
CLASSIFICATION OF COST OF CAPITAL
1.EXPLICIT COST:
It is the discount rate that equates the present value of the funds received by the firm net of
underwriting costs, with the present value of the expected cash outflows.
2. IMPLICIT COST:
It is the rate of return associated with the best investment opportunity for the firm and its
shareholders that will be foregone if the project presently under consideration by the firm were
accepted.
3.FUTURE COST:
It refers to the expected cost of funds to finance the project.
4. HISTORICAL COST:
It is the cost, which has been already incurred for financing a particular project.
5. SPECIFIC COST:
The cost of each component of capital (i.e., equity shares, Preference shares,
Thus, the overall cost of capital of the company is not affected by the change in the debt-equity
ratio. Modigilani and Miller, therefore argue that within the same risk class, mere change of debtequity ratio does not affect the cost of capital and the following theories has been given by them:
1. The total market value of the firm and its cost of capital are independent of its capital
structure. The total market value of the firm can be computed by capitalising the expected
stream of operating earnings at discount rate considered appropriate for its risk class.
2. The cut-off rate for investment purposes is completely independent of the way in which
investment is financed.
I
(1 T )
NP
I ( P Np ) / n
( P NP ) / 2
I ( P Np ) / n
(1-T)
( P NP ) / 2
equal to the effective interest rate payable on them. If the company earns less than the effective
interest rate, earnings available for the equity shareholders will decrease and this would adversely
affect the market price of the companys equity shares.
2. COST OF PREFERENCE CAPITAL:
In case of borrowings, there is a legal obligation on the firm to pay fixed interest while in case
of preference shares, there is no such legal obligation. But it cannot be concluded that preference
share capital does not involve cost as the Preference dividend is generally paid whenever the
company earns sufficient profits.
The failure to pay dividend may be serious concern as they have the first preference and
accumulation of arrears of Preference dividend may adversely affect the payment of dividend to the
equity shareholders.
(a) On account of these reasons, the cost of Preference share capital may be computed as
follows:
Kp=
Dp
NP
D ( P NP ) / n
( P NP ) / 2
Therefore, the Cost of Equity share capital can be defined as the minimum rate of return
that a firm must earn on the equity financed portion of an investment project in order to leave
unchanged the market price of such shares.
In order to determine the cost of equity capital, it may be divided into the following two
categories:
The external equity or new issue of equity shares.
The retained earnings.
(A) THE EXTERNAL EQUITY OR NEW ISSUE OF EQUITY SHARES:
In order to determine the cost of equity capital, the shareholders expectation from their
investment has to be determined first. The following are some of the approaches for the
computation of cost of equity capital.
(1)Dividend Price (D/P) approach:
According to this approach, the investor arrives at the market price of an equity share by
capitalising the expected dividends payments. Cost of equity capital has therefore defined as the
discount rate that equated the present value of all expected future dividends per share with the net
proceeds of the sale of a share.
In other words, the cost of equity capital will be that rate of expected dividends which will
maintain the present market price of the equity shares.
Ke is computed as follows:
Ke =
Where
D
NP
Limitation:
This approach ignores the fact that retained earnings also have an impact on the market
price of the equity shares.
In case of existing shares, it will be appropriate to calculate the Ke based on the market
price of the equity shares. It is computed as follows:
Ke =
D
MP
D
g
NP
D
g
MP
E
Ke= NP
Where Ke = Cost of equity capital
E = Earnings per share
NP = Net Proceeds of an equity share.
However, in case of existing equity shares, it will be appropriate to use market price (MP) instead
of Net Proceeds (NP) for determining the cost of equity capital.
(4) Realised Yield approach
According to this approach, the cost of equity capital should be determined on the basis of
return actually realized by the investors in a company on their equity shares. Thus, according to this
approach, the past records in a given period regarding dividends and the actual capital appreciation
in the value of equity shares held by the shareholders should be taken to compute the cost of equity
capital. This approach gives fairly good results in case of companies with stable dividends and
growth records. In case of such companies, it can be assumed that the past behavior will be
repeated in the future also.
(B) COST OF RETAINED EARNINGS.
The companies do not generally distribute the entire profits earned by them by way of
dividend among their shareholders. They retain some profits for future expansion of the business.
There is an assumption that the retained earnings is absolutely cost free. This is not the correct
approach because the amount retained by the company, if it had been
distributed by way of dividend, would have given them some earning. The company has deprived
the shareholders of these earnings by retaining a part of profit with it.
Thus, the cost of retained earnings is the earning foregone by the shareholders i.e., the
opportunity cost of retained earnings may be taken as the cost of retained earnings. It is equal to the
income that the shareholders could have otherwise earned by placing these funds in alternative
investments.
For eg., if the shareholders have invested the funds in alternative channels, they could
have got a return(say 10%) and this return has not earned by them as the company has retained the
earnings without distributing them. The cost of retained earnings may, therefore be taken as 10%.
The following adjustments are made for ascertaining the cost of retained earnings:
Income Tax adjustment:
The dividends receivable by the shareholders are subject to income tax. Hence, the
dividends actually received by them are not the gross dividends but the amount of net dividend, i.e.,
gross dividends less income tax.
Brokerage cost adjustment:
Usually the shareholders have to incur some brokerage cost for investing the dividends
received. Thus, the funds available with them for reinvestment will be reduced by this amount.
The opportunity cost of retained earnings to the shareholders is therefore, the rate of return
that they can obtain by investing the net dividends (i.e., after tax and brokerage) in alternative
opportunity of equal quality.
The cost of retained earnings after making adjustment for income tax and brokerage cost
payable by the shareholders can be determined by the following formula:
Kr= Ke (IT) (IB)
Where
Kr = Required rate of return on retained earnings
Ke = Shareholders required rate of return
T = Shareholders marginal tax rate
B = Brokerage cost.
The computation of the cost of retained earnings, after making adjustments for tax
liabilities, is a difficult process because personal income tax will differ from shareholder to
shareholder. So in order to avoid this, External yield criterion has been recommended by some
authorities. According to this approach the opportunity cost of retained earnings is the rate of return
that can be earned by investing the funds in another enterprise by the firm. But this method is not
universally acceptable.
WEIGHTED AVERAGE COST OF CAPITAL
After calculating the cost of each component of capital, the average cost of capital is
generally calculated on the basis of weighted average method. This may also be termed as the
overall cost of capital. The computation of the weighted average cost of capital involves the
following steps:
1.CALCULATION OF THE COST OF SPECIFIC SOURCE OF CAPITAL:
This involves the determination of cost of debt, equity & preference capital. This can be
done either on before tax basis or after tax basis. But it will be appropriate to calculate on the
after tax basis. Because the shareholders get dividends only after the taxes have been paid.
2.ASSIGNING WEIGHTS TO SPECIFIC COSTS:
This involves the determination of the proportion of each source of funds in the total
capital structure of the company and this done in any one of the following methods:
(a) MARGINAL WEIGHTS METHOD:
In this method weights are assigned to each source of funds, in proportion of financing
inputs the firm intends to employ. However, this method is suffering from the following limitations:
The weightage is given only for the new capital and not for the already existing
capital and so the weighted average cost of capital so earned may be different from
the actual cost of capital.
A firm should give due attention to long-term implication while designing the firms
financial strategy. But this method does not consider the longterm implications of
the firms current financing.
(b) HISTORICAL WEIGHTS METHOD:
In this method, the relative proportions of various sources to the existing capital
structure are used to assign weights. This is based on the assumption that the firms present capital
structure is optimum and it should be maintained in the future also. Weights under this method may
be either
Book value or
Market value weights.
The weighted average cost of capital will be different depending upon whether book
value weights are used or market value weights are used.
The use of market value weights has the following advantages and practical difficulties:
Advantages:
(i)
The market values of the securities are closely approximate to the actual amount to be
received from the sale of such securities.
(ii)
The cost of specific source of finance that constitutes the capital structure is calculated
according to the prevailing market price.
Limitations:
(i)
The market value of the securities fluctuates considerably.
(ii)
Market values are not readily available as compared to the book values. The book values
can be taken from he published records of the firm.
(iii)
The analysis of the capital structure of the company, in terms of debtequity ratio, is
based on the book value and not on the market value.
3. ADDING OF THE WEIGHTED COST OF ALL SOURCES OF FUNDS TO GET AN
OVERALL WEIGHTED AVERAGE COST OF CAPITAL
LEVERAGES
MEANING:
C
OP
Operating leverage may be favourable or unfavourable. In case the contribution exceeds the
fixed cost, it is favourable and in the reverse case, it is unfavourable.
Degree of Operating leverage:
The degree of Operating leverage may be defined as the percentage change in the
profits resulting from a percentage change in the Sales.
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Financial Leverage =
OP
PBT
or
OP
EBT
Where
OP = Operating Profit or Earnings before Interest and Tax (EBIT).
PBT = Profit before tax but after Interest.
Degree of Financial Leverage:
Degree of Financial Leverage may be defined as the percentage change in taxable profit as a result
of percentage change in operating profit. . It can be computed as follows:
Degree of Financial Leverage = Percentage change in the taxable income
Percentage change in the operating income.
(ii)Where the capital structure consists of preference shares and equity shares:
The formula for computing computation of financial leverage can also be applied to a
financial plan having preference shares. The amount of preference dividends will have to be
grossed up (as per the tax rate applicable to the company) and then deducted from the earnings
before interest and tax.
(iii)Where the capital structure consists of equity shares, preference shares and debt:
In this case, the financial leverage can be computed after deducting from operating profit
both interest and preference dividend on a before tax basis.
Alternative definition of financial leverage:
The ability of a firm to use fixed financial charges to magnify the effects of changes in EBIT on
the firms Earning per share.
Degree of Financial Leverage = Percentage change in Earning per share (EPS)
Percentage change in the EBIT
Where
EPS = Earning per share =
( EBIT I )(1 T ) Dp
N
Where
EBIT = Earnings before interest and tax
I
= Interest paid on debt
T = Tax rate
Dp = Preference dividend
N
= Number of equity shares
III.COMPOSITE LEVERAGE:
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Operating leverage measures the percentage change in the operating profit due to
percentage change in sales and it explains the degree of operating risk.
Financial leverage measures the percentage change in taxable profit (or EPS) on account of
percentage change in operating profit (EBIT) and it explains the financial risk.
Both these leverages are closely concerned with the firms capacity to meet its fixed costs
(both operating and financial). If both the leverages are combined, the result obtained will disclose
the
effect of change in the sales over change in taxable profit (EPS).
C
OP
C
x
=
OP PBT
PBT
Where
C = Contribution (i.e., Sales - Variable cost)
OP = Operating profit or Earnings before Interest and Tax (EBIT)
PBT = Profit before tax.
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The existence of operating leverage will result in more than proportionate change even for a
small change in sales. The Presence of high degree of financial leverage causes a more than
proportionate change in EPS even on account of a small change in EBIT.
Thus firms having a high degree of operating leverage and financial leverage has to face the
problems of liquidity or insolvency in one year or the other year. It does not however mean that a
firm should opt for low degree of financial leverage. This may indicate the cautious policy of the
management, but the firm will be losing profit-earning opportunities.
A firm having high operating leverage should not have high financial leverage. Similarly a
firm having a low operating leverage will gain profit by having a low operating leverage provided it
has enough profitable opportunities for the employment of borrowed funds.
Low operating leverage and high financial leverage is considered to be an ideal situation for the
maximization of the profits with minimum risk. A firm should therefore, make all possible efforts to
combine the operating and financial leverage to maximize the risk and minimize the risk.
SUGGESTED QUESTIONS:
Short answer questions:
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6.
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