Granite Works Maintains a Debt-Equity Ratio of

Granite Works maintains a debt-equity ratio of .58 and has a tax rate of 21 percent. The pretax cost of debt is 8.9 percent. There are 18,000 shares of stock outstanding with a beta of 1.42 and a market price of $23 a share. The current market risk premium is 7.8 percent and the current risk-free rate is 3.1 percent. This year, the firm paid an annual dividend of $1.68 a share and expects to increase that amount by 2 percent each year. Using an average expected cost of equity, what is the weighted average cost of capital?

A) 8.44 percent
B) 9.78 percent
C) 8.96 percent
D) 9.13 percent
E) 10.06 percent