Evaluating New Projects with Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)

The weighted average cost of capital is a weighted average of the cost of equity, debt, and preference shares. And the weights are the percentage of capital sourced from each component, respectively, in market value terms. It is better known as Overall ‘WACC,’ i.e., the overall cost of capital for the company as a whole. Moreover, the advantages of using such a WACC are its simplicity, easiness, and enabling prompt decision making. The disadvantages are its limited scope of application and its rigid assumptions coming in the way of evaluating new projects.

Assumptions of WACC when used a Hurdle Rate for New Projects

The WACC can very well work as a hurdle rate in evaluating the new projects, provided the following two underlying assumptions are true for those new projects.

No Change in Capital Structure

The capital mix or structure of the new project investment should be the same as the company’s existing structure. It means that if the company has a 70:30 ratio of debt to equity on its current balance sheet, the inclusion of the new project will maintain the same.

No change in Risk of New Projects

The risk associated with the new project will be like the existing projects. For example, a textile manufacturer expands and increases the no. of looms from 60 to 100. Since the industry and business are the same, there will be almost no change in the risk profile of the current business and the new expansion.

Weighted Average Cost of Capital WACC

If the assumptions of using plain WACC are not true for a project or a division, it is advisable to evaluate with Project or Divisional WACC.

Advantages of Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)

Simple and Easy

The biggest advantage of using WACC as a hurdle rate to evaluate new projects is simplicity. And the calculation does not involve too much complication. The manager needs to apply the weights of each source’s finances with its cost and aggregate the result.

Single Hurdle Rate for All Projects

One single hurdle rate for all projects saves a lot of time for the managers in an evaluation of the new projects. Moreover, if the projects are of the same risk profile and there is no change in the proposed capital structure, the current WACC can be applied and effectively used.

Prompt Decisions Making

It is said that the ‘same opportunity never knocks twice.’ For taking advantage, the right decisions have to be taken at the right time. Since the single rate is used for all new projects, the decisions can arrive at a faster pace, and the new opportunity can be grabbed and taken benefit.

Project Evaluation Using WACC

Disadvantages of Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)

The disadvantages are stemmed mainly from the assumptions of the applicability of WACC. The practicability and limitations of the assumptions are below. The remedy to overcome the problem is also specified.

Difficulty in Maintaining the Capital Structure

The impractical assumptions of ‘No Change in Capital Structure’ have rare possibilities of prevailing all the time. It suggests the same capital structure for new projects. There are two possibilities for funding the project in this way.

  • The first is to fund it with the retained earnings. In this case, it would be reasonably correct to assume that the new project is funded with the same capital structure. The limitation here is of availability of free cash with the company. Even if the free cash is available, it will put a cap on the size of the investment. Suppose, the new project requires $100 million, and the company has only $70 million. What to do for the remaining $30 million?
  • The second possibility is raising funds in the same capital mix. It is not impossible to do that but at the same time, getting funds on our terms is not easily possible in the market. On top of everything, the primary focus of management of a company would not be to maintain capital structure ratio but to reduce the cost of capital as low as possible to achieve the shareholders’ profit and wealth maximization.

The remedy to this problem is that the target capital structure should be taken into consideration and not the existing one. And therefore, the adjustment in the calculation of WACC should be accordingly.

Accepting Bad Projects and Rejecting Good Projects

The impractical assumptions of ‘No Change in Risk Profile of New Projects again have their inbuilt drawbacks. The risk is a very wide term and a big list of factors affects it. Under that situation, assuming no change in the risk profile of new projects would be very unrealistic. Let us assume two situations:

  • Company Expanding in its Own Industry: The assumption can be reasonably true if the company is expanding in its industry and the same business as the textile example given above. Still, it is not entirely true because the risk associated with installing looms in the past and today may be different. The technology may be different and complicated. The quality and cost aspects may be dissimilar.
  • Company Expanding in Different Industry: The assumption, in this case, would surely prove malicious. It is because FMCG and Heavy Machineries cannot have the same risk profile. Having different risk profile, the cost of equity would also be different and therefore applying the same WACC pose a very high risk of rejecting good projects that will create value and accepting projects that will diminish the value of the shareholders’ wealth.

The remedy to this problem is that the WACC should be adjusted to take effect of the change in risk.

Difficulty in Acquiring Current Market Cost of Capital

The WACC used for the evaluation of new projects requires consideration of the present-day cost of capital and knowing such costs is difficult. The WACC considers mainly equity, debt, and preferred. The interest cost of debt keeps changing in the market depending on the economic changes. The expected dividend of the preferred also keeps changing with the market sentiments, and the most fluctuating is the expected cost of equity.

Important Sources of Capital Avoided

While making WACC calculations, only equity, debt, and preference shares are considered for the sake of simply assuming that they cover a major portion of the capital. In support of absolutely correct approach towards discounting rate, if we include convertible or callable preference shares, debt, or stock market-linked bonds, or puttable or extendable bonds, warrants, etc. also which are also a claimant to the profits of the company like equity, debt and preference shares, it will make the calculations very complex. Too much complexity is a probable reason for mistakes. On similar grounds, the short-term borrowings and the cost of trade credit are also not considered. Factors like such, if introduced, will change the WACC. We will not go into the magnitude of the difference these things will have on the calculations of the WACC, but the impact is there.

Other Techniques for Evaluating New Projects

New project evaluation is a very important and critical task as it may entail a large capital expenditure. The organization has to make funding arrangements, and the same needs to be deployed carefully to achieve growth and positive returns. Even if the funds are internally sourced still, there remains the opportunity cost. Moreover, if there remain 2 or more projects in the offing, selecting one signals shelving of the other projects.

And obviously, the organization would prefer to select the project which brings in the highest return. As we saw, WACC, though simple but has its limitations too. So to cross-check, the organization uses other similar techniques to zero on the preference, rather than depending and deciding based on only the WACC rate of return.

The other techniques used are:

Pay Back Period

This method considers the yearly cash inflows from the project under evaluation. After that, add all of them up to the year/period by which the total project outlay or total cash outflow becomes equal to the inflows. The payback period is the juncture or the time period when inflows become equal to the outflows. And it indicates that the capital expenditure recovery will take that much time. Payback Period (PBP)

Accounting Rate of Return (ARR)

ARR (Accounting Rate of Return) is basically an average rate of return expected from the projects over their life. And if this rate is higher than the company’s cost of capital then the project may be preferred. To calculate this accounting profits of all the years are added and averaged. After that, the initial investment value and the value at the end of the project life are averaged i.e. divided by 2. And finally, average accounting profits / average investment on the project. This gives an average rate of return the project may provide.

Internal Rate of Return (IRR) 

Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is the rate of interest or return that makes the Net Present Value of all the cash inflows and outflows of the Project as Zero. Here time value of money is given due importance. Hence, all the inflows and outflows are so discounted with the interest rate that all become zero. If such a rate is higher than the cost of capital then the project is worth considering. Of course, the discounting is slightly complex and attempted thru the trial and error method. But now, with the excel and availability of the software, the job has become relatively easy.

Conclusion

Disadvantages are associated with everything, so does with WACC. This does not prove the concept futile. It can be used under different circumstances by making some adjustments to it. There are other theories like Adjusted WACC and Adjusted Present Value Approach to circumvent the disadvantages of WACC. Finally, any decision should not be based on a single factor in isolation.



Sanjay Borad

Sanjay Bulaki Borad

MBA-Finance, CMA, CS, Insolvency Professional, B'Com

Sanjay Borad, Founder of eFinanceManagement, is a Management Consultant with 7 years of MNC experience and 11 years in Consultancy. He caters to clients with turnovers from 200 Million to 12,000 Million, including listed entities, and has vast industry experience in over 20 sectors. Additionally, he serves as a visiting faculty for Finance and Costing in MBA Colleges and CA, CMA Coaching Classes.

3 thoughts on “Evaluating New Projects with Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)”

  1. This article is very helpful for me. I really find this article very helpful. I think that I can use this to grow and manage my business. Thanks for sharing this article. I will definitely return to this site.

    Reply
  2. It’s very simple to understand your article.
    Indeed in layman’s terms
    Thanks for making learning Financial MGT easier

    Reply

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