Cost of capital is the return expected by the providers of capital (i.e. shareholders, lenders and the debt-holders) to the business as a compensation for their contribution to the total capital. When an entity (corporate or others) procured finances from either sources as listed above, it has to pay some additional amount of money besides the principal amount. The additional money paid to these financiers may be either one off payment or regular payment at specified intervals. This additional money paid is said to be the cost of using the capital and it is called the cost of capital. This cost of capital expressed in rate is used to discount/ compound the cashflow or stream of cashflows. Cost of capital is also known as ‘cut-off’ rate, ‘hurdle rate’, ‘minimum rate of return’ etc. This is applicable for May 22, Nov 22 exams.