Company A, a low-rated firm, desires a fixed-rate, long-term loan. Company A presently has access to floating interest rate funds at a margin of 1.5%...

Company A, a low-rated firm, desires a fixed-rate, long-term loan. Company A presently has access to floating interest rate funds at a margin of 1.5% over LIBOR. Its direct borrowing cost is 13% in the fixed-rate bond market. In contrast, company B, which prefers a floating-rate loan, has access to fixed-rate funds at 11% and floating-rate funds at LIBOR+0.5%. Suppose both companies enter into an interest rate swap and split the spread differential; that is, they share the spread differential equally.

With the swap deal, what interest rate would Company B pay for its floating-rate funds?

Note: You can just assume that both companies enter into the swap directly with each other without going through a bank, or you can assume that they go through a bank but the gain to the bank is zero.

Select one: