Question

Orchard Farms has a pretax cost of debt of 7.29 percent and a cost of equity of 16.3 percent. The firm uses the subjective approach to determine project discount rates. Currently, the firm is considering a project to which it has assigned an adjustment factor of 1.25 percent. The firm's tax rate is 35 percent and its debt-equity ratio is .48. The project has an initial cost of $3.9 million and produces cash inflows of $1.26 million a year for 5 years. What is the net present value of the project?a. $421,619b. $446,556c. $514,370d. $561,027e. $478,721

Answer 1

Answer: Net present value =  $446,556

Explanation:

First we'll compute the Weighted Average Cost of Capital :

Weighted Average Cost of Capital = $K_{e} \times W_{e} + K_{d} \times W_{d}$

= 0.163×$\frac{1}{1.48}$ + 0.0729× (1 - 0.35 )× $\frac{0.48}{1.48}$  

= 0.1255

where;

$K_{e}$ = Cost of equity

$W_{e}$ = Proportion of equity

$K_{d}$ = Cost of debt

$W_{d}$ = Proportion of debt

Now, we'll compute the cost of capital using the following formula:

Cost of capital = Weighted Average Cost of Capital + adjustment factor

= 0.1255 + 0.0125

= 0.138 or 13.8%

∴ Net present value = Cash outflows - Total PV of cash flows

= $3,900,000 - $1,260,000 (Annuity value of 13.8% for 5 years)

$= 3,900,000 - 1260000 \times \frac{[1-(1+13.8)^{-5}]}{13.8}$

= $3,900,000 - $3,453,444

= $446,556

Therefore, the correct answer is option(b).