The Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) is the rate at which flows should be discounted to evaluate a project or company. To calculate this rate, it is necessary to consider the company’s cost of debt and cost of equity; the former is the current market rate the company is paying for its debt, however the latter may be more complex and difficult to estimate as there is no explicit cost. This work presents an overview of the proposed theories throughout history to calculate the cost of equity. As a particular case, the unlevered cost of equity for six unlisted French companies belonging to the Household and Personal Service sector (SAP) will be estimated. In order to achieve the above, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) will be used, this based on what was presented by Martha Pachón (2013) in “Alternative Model for Calculating the Cost of Equity”.
