Thomas Mapother is a corporate finance executive at Hilton, the hotel company. His CEO wants to invest in a chain of department stores and wants to use Hilton's weighted average cost of capital (WACC) in the evaluation process. What should Thomas advise?
Select one:
a. Thomas should advise that Hilton's WACC should not be used under any circumstances because a hotel company is quite different from a chain of department stores.
b. Thomas should advise the CEO to leave corporate finance matters to Thomas and his team and concentrate on strategy.
c. Thomas should advise that there is no problem using Hilton's WACC in the analysis because most companies use the WACC this way.
d. Thomas should advise that the WACC for Hilton could be used as long as some adjustments are made to allow for the fact the department store business is quite different from the hotel business.
The answer is
d. Thomas should advise that the WACC for Hilton could be used as long as some adjustments are made to allow for the fact the department store business is quite different from the hotel business.
When a different business line is started, its risks and returns are quite different from other lines. Hence, WACC cannot be used for evaluating the other business.
Adjustments are to be made to WACC so that right rate is used to evaluate proposals.
Generally, cost of capital of firms in the same business are considered for this purpose.
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