The Marriott Corporation's Growth Objective
Marriott estimated its cost of capital through the application of a weighting formula that included the market values of debt and equity and the effects of the firm's federal tax rate on these measures. This approach produced a weighted average opportunity cost of capital for the firm. This firm-level cost of capital was used in calculations to assess the desirability of repurchasing under values shares on the market. Additionally, Marriott calculated a separate weighted cost of capital for each of the firm's operating divisions.
The weighted costs of capital for each division were used to assess potential investments within the separate divisions. Additionally, these divisional weighted costs of capital were used by the firm to determine the fraction of total divisional debt that should be at floating rate and at fixed rates.
The approach to the determination and use of costs of capital by the firm make sense because the different lines of business in which the company participates are characterized by substantially different capital needs, capital costs, and returns on investment. Therefore, the use of a single cost of capital for the different operating divisions would tend to distort investment decisions.
The weighted average cost of capital for the Marriott Corporation is 11.85 percent. Long-term debt plus equity from Exhibit 1 (p. 583, Case) was used as the value of the firm.
a. The risk-free rate used in the determination of the cost of equity was 8.72 percent. The risk premium used to calculate the cost of equity was 5.25.
b. The cost of debt for the Marriott Corporation was measured by using the rate for a 10-year United States government security plus a premium cost of 30 percent above the government rate.
c. Arithmetic averages were used to measure rates of return.
Using the weighted average cost of capital for the Marriott Corporation, the type of investments that would