During the last few years, Jana Industries has been too constrained by the high cost of capital to make many capital investments. Recently, though, capital costs have been declining, and the company has decided to look seriously at a major expansion program that has been proposed by the marketing department. Assume that you are an assistant to Leigh Jones, the financial vice-president. Your first task is to estimate Jana’s cost of capital. Jones has provided you with the following data, which she believes may be relevant to your task:

Question

1. The firm's tax rate is 40%.
2. The current price of Jana’s 12% coupon, semiannual payment, noncallable bonds with 15 years remaining to maturity is $1,153.72. Jana does not use short-term interest-bearing debt on a permanent basis. New bonds would be privately placed with no flotation cost.
3. The current price of the firm’s 10%, $100 par value, quarterly dividend, perpetual preferred stock is $116.95. Jana would incur flotation costs equal to 5% of the proceeds on a new issue.
4. Jana’s common stock is currently selling at $50 per share. Its last dividend was $3.12, and dividends are expected to grow at a constant rate of 5.8% in the foreseeable future. Jana’s beta is 1.2; the yield on T-bonds is 5.6%; and the market risk premium is estimated to be 6%. For the over-own-bond-yield-plus-judgmental-risk-premium approach, the firm uses a 3.2%judgmental risk premium.
5. Jana’s target capital structure is 30% long-term debt, 10% preferred stock, and 60% common equity.
To help you structure the task, Leigh Jones has asked you to answer the following questions.
Could the dividend growth approach be applied if the growth rate was not constant? How?

Answer 1

Yes, you could use the dividend growth approach using nonconstant growth. You would find the PV of the dividends during the nonconstant growth period and add this value to the PV of the series of inflows when growth is assumed to become constant.