Question

Q#2 (Chapter 9). A diversified company has decided to use its overall firm WACC as a performance benchmark for rating its divisional managers and to decide whether new projects from its three divisions should be funded for investment capital. The firm WACC is 12%. The divisional WACCs for its high risk, average risk, and low risk divisions are 16%, 11.9%, and 8%, respectively. Please explain the pros and cons of using the firm WACC in evaluating its divisional managers and projects. Remember that WACC can be interpreted as a hurdle rate or the minimum acceptable return. Limit your answers to 10 sentences.

Answer 1

Pros: Use of singe hurdle rate saves time in the evaluation of projects which results in prompt decision making.

Cons: Company may reject good projects and accept bad ones due to the assumptions underlying WACC use in capital budgeting.

Step-by-step explanation:

Pros of using WACC: The use of WACC implies that the company uses a single hurdle rate for all projects, which simplifies the decision making and saves time when evaluating projects

Cons of using WACC: Use of WACC assumes that there is no change in capital structure i.e all projects are financed in exactly the same way and all projects have the same risk . These assumptions may lead to the company rejecting good projects and accepting bad ones. For example the company may accept a high risk project with a return of 14% when the minimum return that should be accepted according to the high risk divisional WACC is 16%. Likewise, the company may reject a low risk project with a return of 11%, when it is in fact a good project whose minimum return should be 8% as per the low risk divisional WACC.