SSN 35: Capital Structure and Leverage 5. The relationship between a firm's capital structure and other company attributes Under the assumptions of Modigliani and Miller's original paper, a firm's stock price will be maximized at 100% Signaling theory implies that a firm with extremely favorable prospects will be more likely to issue to fund any new projects. When a firm announces a new stock offering the price of its stock will usually . When Information is managers have more information about a firm's prospects than investors do. Blue Ram Brewing Company currently has no debt in its capital structure, but it is considering using some debt and reducing its outstanding equity. The firm's unlevered beta is 1.15, and its cost of equity is 11.55%. Because the firm has no debt in its capital structure, its weighted average cost of capital (WACC) also equals 11.55%. The risk-free rate of interest (raw) is 3.5%, and the market risk premium (RPM) is 76. Blue Ram's marginal tax rate is 25% Blue Ram is examining how different levels of debt will affect its costs of debt and equity, as well as its WACC. The firm has collected the financial information that follows to analyze its weighted average cost of capital (WACC). Complete the following table. D/Cap Ratio 0.0 E/Cap Ratio Bond Rating Before-Tax Cost of Debt (ra) Cost of Equity D/E Ratio 0.00 Levered Beta (b) 1.15 WACC 1.0 0.8 0.2 11.55% 13.062% 0.25 11.5596 11.530% 7.2% 7.7% 0.4 0.6 0.67 BBB 1.725 15.575% 0.6 0.4 1.50 BB 2.444 8.9% 11.9% 12.248 0.8 0.2 4.600 35.700%