Life insurers in South Africa have been stumbling over each other to issue long-term debt. The reason? Ostensibly to reduce their WACC and generate greater value for shareholders.

Common sense tells us that this is a sensible thing to do. Companies all over the world have been using debt capital to reduce their WACC by sharing the cost of financing the business with Mr Tax Collector. (The interest payments made to holders of the debt are tax-deductible expenses for the companies that issue the debt. Dividends paid to ordinary shareholders must be paid out of net-of-tax income.)

Take the example where the pre-tax cost of debt (yield to maturity on current debt or equivalently, the annualised coupon required on newly issued debt for the debt to be placed at par value) and cost of equity (a little more complicated, since the cost of equity depends on whether the equity is retained earnings or equity freshly issued through a rights offer, but will generally be based on a CAPM or APT-type model of the return required by shareholders) are equal at, say, 10%. The generic formula for the WACC is:

WACC = (1-t)*cost of debt*w + cost of equity*(1-w)

where t is the corporate tax rate and w is the percentage of total capital (measured at current market value and not book value) contributed by debt.

Thus, if w is 50%, then our WACC = (1-29%)*10%*50% + 10%*50% = 8.55%, which is lower than the 10% cost of equity. Thus, magically, but incorporating debt financing into our capital structure, we have lowered our cost of capital and increase the value of our company to our shareholders.

Or have we? Continue reading →