Lawler's is considering a new project. The company has a debt-equity ratio of .64. The company's cost of equity is 14.9 percent, and the aftertax cost of debt is 5.3 percent. The firm feels that the project is riskier than the company as a whole and that it should use an adjustment factor of +1.8 percent. What is the project cost of capital if the tax rate is 34 percent?

The WACC or weighted average cost of capital is the cost of a firm's capital structure. The capital structure of a firm may contain one or all of the following components - debt, preferred stock, common stock. For a firm with two components in capital structure in form of debt and equity, the WACC is calculated as follows,

WACC = wD * rD * (1+tax rate) + wE* rE

Where,

wD and wE are the weights of debt and equity in the total capital structure
rD and rE are the cost of each component
We multiply the cost of debt by 1 - tax rate to calculate the after tax cost of debt

We must first determine the weight of debt and equity in total capital structure.

A debt to equity ratio of 0.64 means 0.64 debt for every 1 dollar of equity. The total assets are made up of debt + equity. So, total assets are 0.64 + 1 = 1.64

Weight of debt = 0.64 / 1.64 = 16/41

Weight of equity = 1 / 1.64 = 25/41

WACC = 16/41 * 0.053 + 25/41 * 0.149

WACC = 0.1115 or 11.15%

The projects cost of capital is 1.8% more than the company's WACC.

So, the project's cost of capital is,

Project's WACC = 11.15% + 1.8%

Project's WACC = 12.95%