Answer: a. If two firms differ only in their use of debt—i.e., they have identical assets, identical total invested capital, sales, operating costs, interest rates on their debt, and tax rates—but one firm has a higher total debt to total capital ratio, the firm that uses more debt will have a lower profit margin on sales and a lower return on assets.
Explanation:
A firm that uses more debt financing will have to pay more interest. Interest is an expense that is deducted from Net Income so the more the debt, the higher the interest payment and the lower the net profit/ income.
Profit margin on sales is calculated by dividing profit by the sales revenue and return on assets is calculated by dividing net income by the average total assets. Both these ratios use the Net income as the numerator so if it is lower as a result of more interest payments, the ratio will be lower as well.