Abstract:
The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the reader to the general topic of
capital costs, especially the cost of equity capital and its estimation. Due to the shortage
of this paper many different or “classic” approaches will be brought up and explained,
but only CAPM will be applied and put in contrast to one alternative approach. This
alternative sophisticated tool is called the Alternative Hierarchy Process. It has a
uniqueness, which allows the user to incorporate every important aspect of the
company’s business as well as other unique qualities.
The author states that AHP, because of its possibilities, is better suited for the
estimation of the cost of equity capital and therefore delivers more reliable results than CAPM does. A company operating in the Austrian medical sector will be evaluated for
this purpose and the results, of both approaches, will be compared with each other. Finally it has to pointed out that CAPM is never the less a good approach, but
only for rated companies, since it accuracy is dependent on the data available. Therefore
it could only supposedly be applied in not trade companies with a very long history,
since it was proven that low data frequencies and economic disturbances sophisticate
the results. Not trade companies and especially very small properly functioning
companies present such unique qualities that an estimation of equity returns can turn out
to be a surprise in every direction, but more than less predictable with a methodology
that incorporate this uniqueness.
