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FIN515 Second Course Project

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Weighted Average Cost of Capital: Home Depot, Inc.
Second Project
FIN515 – Managerial Finance
Instructor: Prof. David Eichenholtz
Group:
John Okogeri
Fiona Harrison-Butts
Haider Chaudhry
Mia O’Blenis
Christopher Cardenas
Date: April 5, 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3 company profile 3
WACC calculation 4 explanation of calculation/results 5
Limiting factors 5
Conclusion 6 references 7

Weighted Cost of Capital: Home Depot, Inc.

Introduction The purpose of this project is to find the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) for Home Depot. Investopedia.com reveals that the WACC is “a calculation of a firm's cost of capital in which each category of capital is proportionately weighted. All capital sources …show more content…

While the relative debt and equity values can be easily determined, calculating the costs of debt and equity can be problematic. In calculating each component, we are given many different options and proxy values (boundless.com, 2015). In addition the calculation is based on assumptions of the capital mix that cannot always be maintained, “One of main limitation of using WACC is that it does not take into consideration the floatation cost of raising the marginal capital for new projects. Another problem with WACC is that it is based on an impractical assumption of same capital mix which is very difficult to maintain” (Borad, 2012).
Conclusion
Calculating a firm’s cost of capital has always been a key issue in financial management. To tackle this issue, WACC is one of the most widely used formulas even though the process is difficult, and results seem ambiguous. However, it is clear that WACC is the average cost of capital the firm must pay, in this case Home Depot (HD), to all its investors, both debt and equity holders. Since HD has debt to the tune of $29.6 billion (2012), it means that rwacc is an average of its debt and equity cost of capital. Based on the limiting factors revealed on the page 5, our confidence level in HD’s WACC is moderate. Nevertheless, since HD’s WACC is 5.97% it means that the company should only invest in projects

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