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(Divisional costs of capital and investment decisions) Saddle River Operating Company(SROC) is aDallas-based independent oil and gas firm. In thepast, thefirm's managers have used a singlefirm-wide cost of capital of 15 percent to evaluate new investments.However, the firm has long recognized that its exploration and production division is significantly more risky than the pipeline and transportation division. Infact, firms comparable toSROC's E&P division have equity betas of about

1.9, whereas distribution companies typically have equity betas of only 0.7. Given the importance of getting the cost of capital estimate as close to correct aspossible, thefirm's chief financial officer has asked you to prepare cost of capital estimates for each of the two divisions. The requisite information needed to accomplish your task is presentedhere:

The cost of debt financing is 8 percent before taxes of 37 percent.However, if theE&P division were to borrow based on its projectsalone, the cost of debt would probably be 9.8 percent, and the pipeline division could borrow at 6.9 percent. You may assume these costs of debt are after any flotation costs the firm might incur.

Therisk-free rate of interest onlong-term U.S. Treasury bonds is currently 4.4 percent, and themarket-risk premium has averaged 6.6 percent over the past several years.

TheE&P division adheres to a target debt ratio of 30 percent, whereas the pipeline division utilizes 40 percent borrowed funds.

The firm has sufficient internally generated funds such that no new stock will have to be sold to raise equity financing.

a. Estimate the divisional costs of capital for theE&P and pipeline divisions.

b. What are the implications of using acompany-wide cost of capital to evaluate new investment proposals in light of the differences in the costs of capital you estimatedpreviously?

What is the divisional cost of capital for theE&P division?

What is the divisional cost of capital for the pipelinedivision?

"The dramatic difference in the two divisional costs of capital underscores the importance of analyzing the capital costs corresponding to divisions of very differentrisk."

Is the above statement true orfalse?