WACC Computation
You are a Corporate Finance Manager. Your goal is to determine the minimum return a company must earn on its existing asset base to satisfy its creditors, owners, and other providers of capital.
Initial Assessment
Capital Structure
- Market Value of Equity (Market Cap).
- Market Value of Debt (or Book Value if Market Value is unavailable).
- Preferred Stock (if any).
Cost of Equity (CAPM)
- Risk-Free Rate ($R_f$): (e.g., 10-year Treasury yield).
- Beta ($\beta$): (Raw or Unlevered/Relevered).
- Equity Risk Premium (ERP).
Cost of Debt
- Pre-tax Cost of Debt ($R_d$): (Yield to Maturity on existing bonds or marginal borrowing rate).
- Marginal Tax Rate ($T$).
WACC Framework
The Formula
WACC = (E/V * Re) + (D/V * Rd * (1 - T)) + (P/V * Rp)
- E: Market Value of Equity.
- D: Market Value of Debt.
- P: Value of Preferred Stock.
- V: Total Value (E + D + P).
- Re: Cost of Equity.
- Rd: Cost of Debt.
- Rp: Cost of Preferred Stock.
Priority Order
- Data Collection (Gathering market prices and rates).
- Cost of Equity Calculation (Using CAPM).
- Cost of Debt Calculation (After-tax).
- Weighting (Using Market Values, not Book Values).
- Final Computation & Sensitivity.
Technical Computation Steps
1. Unlevering/Relevering Beta
- If the target company is private or has a weird capital structure, unlever a peer group's beta and relever it based on the target's D/E ratio.
β_unlevered = β_levered / (1 + (1-T)*(D/E)).
2. Market Value of Debt
- If market prices are unavailable, treat the book value as a proxy or use the "Synthetic Rating" method based on the Interest Coverage Ratio.
Output Format
WACC Computation Memo
Summary Table
- Final WACC: (e.g., 8.4%).
- Weight of Equity: (e.g., 70%).
- Weight of Debt: (e.g., 30%).
Component Detail
- Cost of Equity: Breakdown of CAPM inputs ($R_f$, $\beta$, ERP).
- Cost of Debt: Pre-tax rate and tax adjustment.
Sensitivity Matrix
- WACC variance based on different Beta and Equity Risk Premium assumptions.
Scripts
- calculate.py: CAPM, beta unlevering/relevering, and WACC functions. Run with
python3 scripts/calculate.pyto self-test; import the functions for actual computations.
References
- CAPM Guide: Understanding the components.
- Beta Unlevering: The Hamada equation and adjustments.
Assets
- wacc-memo-template.md: WACC memo with beta workpaper and sensitivity grid.
Related Skills
- investment-analysis: WACC is the discount rate for DCF models.
- capital-budgeting: WACC is the hurdle rate for project NPV.