How would WACC differ if you were valuing a company in Brazil vs the US?

Answer

Three adjustments: (1) Risk-free rate — Brazilian government debt is not considered fully risk-free; common approach is to use the US Treasury yield + a 'country risk premium' (CRP, currently ~3-5% for Brazil); (2) Equity risk premium — use a higher ERP that incorporates emerging-market risk (often 7-10% vs ~5-6% US baseline); (3) Cost of debt — use the actual market yield on Brazilian-issued corporate debt, which already embeds country risk + credit risk + currency considerations; (4) Tax rate — use Brazil's corporate tax rate (~34%) for the after-tax cost of debt and Hamada relevering of beta.