Answer:
B) 9.1%
Explanation:
Cost of debt is the interest rate paid by a company due to borrowing money; i.e debt from investors.
$185million in debt is the face value of debt that Westford Corporation had and the $26 million dollars of interest expense is the cost of the debt in dollars;
First, find pretax cost of debt ;
Pretax cost of debt = (Interest expense / Face value of debt )*100
= (26,000,000/ 185,000,000 )*100
=0.1405 *100
= 14.05%
Next, use pretax cost of debt to find after-tax cost of debt;
After-tax cost of debt = Pretax cost of debt (1-tax)
= 14.05% *(1-0.35)
= 9.13%
Therefore, Westford's cost of debt capital is 9.1%