The capital-budgeting decisions - Free Essay Example

1) Should Reinaldo focus on cash flows or accounting profits in making the Capital-budgeting decisions? Should we be interested in incremental cash flows, incremental profits, total free cash flows, or total profits? Capital budgeting is the process by which the financial manager decides whether to invest in any asset or specific capital projects.It is the planning process used to determine whether a firms long terminvestmentssuch as new machinery, replacement machinery, new plants or products, and research development projects are worth pursuing. Most companies have many different projects but all of them cannot actually be funded, hence managers must carefully selectthose projects that promise the greatest future return by taking relevant managerial decisions after the analysis of capital budgeting techniques. We know that liquidity of a business is determined by its Cash flow. The movement of money in and out of the business is regarded as the cash flow. Managing cash flow is vitally important in the smooth running, success and survival of a business. Having completed the cash flow forecast, the business can see when there might be times when it might be in difficulties and thereafter put in place a strategy to deal with the problem. Therefore the most preferred method while making any managerial decisions should be using the incremental cash flows and discounting them to reflect the time value of money. A positive incremental cash flow indicates that the companys cash flow will increase with the acceptance of the project and therefore an organization should spend some time and money investing in the project. On the other hand, Reinaldo should also be focusing on the Accounting Profits which is the difference between total revenue and explicit costs. Reinaldo should make sure that the project is meeting the organizations required rate of return. He shou ld forecast or project the impact on the companys future financial statements by calculating and understanding the effect on the accounting profits resulting from the capital expenditure. Considering the project will be terminated in 5 years, he should also focus on the Incremental profits i.e. the profit gain or loss associated with a given managerial decision. As long as the Incremental profit is positive i.e. the incremental revenue is more than the incremental cost, the total profit increases and vice-versa. 2) How does depreciation affect free cash flows? In accounting, an expense recorded to allocate a tangible assets cost over its useful life is known as Depreciation.Becausedepreciation is a non-cash expense, it increases free cash flow while decreasing reported earnings and does not directly affect the cash flowof a company. Depreciation = Cost Residual value / Life Depreciation does not affect cash flow statement as depreciation is not a cash expense rather it is just a treatment to dispose off the value of asset according to useful life of asset and the cost of asset is already shown in cash flow statement when asset is purchased. However, depreciation recognized for tax purposes will affect the cash flow of the company, as it will reducetaxable profits. Since the focus of analysis is cash flow, the importance of depreciation expense arises from the fact that depreciation expense can be used to reduce future tax liabilities through the reduction of taxable income by an amount equal to depreciation expense. When deprec iation expense is tax deductible, cash flow increases because of the Tax savings because depreciation expense reduces taxable income and therefore the resulting tax liability. 3. How do sunk costs affect the determination of cash flows? A cost that has been incurred and cannot be reversed is commonly referred to as Sunk cost or Embedded cost. Ex- A worn-out piece of equipment bought several years ago is a sunk cost because the cost of buying it cannot be reversed. Since we cant undo the cash flow outflow, only future costs are relevant to decision making because only future cash disbursements can be controlled. These costs are incurred before an activity hence it represents an outflow in the cash flow statement. Therefore it is implied that a huge sunk cost can make an investment irreversible and higher is the sunk cost, higher will be its effect on the cash flow or vice-versa. 4. What is the projects initial outlay? It is the cost of entering into a project which includes the cash required to acquire the new equipment or build the new plant less any net cash proceeds from the disposal of the replaced equipment (if any). The initial outlay also includes any additional working capital related to the new equipment. Only costs that occur at the beginning of the project are included as part of the projects initial outlay. Any additional working capital needed or no longer needed in a future period is accounted for as a cash outflow or cash inflow during that period. The initial outlay for Reinaldo Products for this particular project will include the following: Particulars Amount Cost of new plant equipment $7,900,000 Shipping and installation costs $100,000 Initial working capital requirement $100,000 Total $8,100,000 5. What are the differential cash flows over the project life? Differential Cash flow is the net free cash flow of a project after taking into account the changes in its operating expenses, taxes and depreciation and revenue. The Differential cash flows of this particular project over the life of the project i.e. 5 years can be seen in the below table. Differential Cash Flow Year 1 3,956,000 Year 2 8,416,000 Year 3 10,900,000 Year 4 8,548,000 Year 5 5,980,000 Table showing the working/calculations of the Differential Cash Flow: Workings of Differential Cash Flow Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Sales Quantity 70,000 120,000 140,000 80,000 60,000 Selling price per unit 300 300 300 300 260 Variable cost per unit 180 180 180 180 180 Sales 21,000,000 36,000,000 42,000,000 24,000,000 15,600,000 (-) Variable cost 12,600,000 21,600,000 25,200,000 14,400,000 10,800,000 (-) Fixed cost 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 (=) EBDIT 8,200,000 14,200,000 16,600,000 9,400,000 4,600,000 Less: Depreciation 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 (=) EBIT 6,600,000 12,600,000 15,000,000 7,800,000 3,000,000 (-)Taxes 2,244,000 4,284,000 5,100,000 2,652,000 1,020,000 (+) Depreciation 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 (=) Operating CF 5,956,000 9,916,000 11,500,000 6,748,000 3,580,000 (-) Incremental WC ** 100,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 600,000 -1,800,000 -2,400,000 (-) Capital Investment 8,000,000 Differential Cash Flow -8,100,000 3,956,000 8,416,000 10,900,000 8,548,000 5,980,000 ** WC 0 WC 1 WC 2 WC 3 WC 4 WC 5 Working capital required 100,000 2,100,000 3,600,000 4,200,000 2,400,000 1,560,000 WC 1 WC 0 WC 2 WC 1 WC 3 WC 2 WC 4 WC 3 WC 5 WC 4 Liquidated WC Incremental WC 100,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 600,000 -1,800,000 -2,400,000 6. What is the terminal cash flow? Cash flowsresulting at the end orterminationof aproject, without including theoperating cash flows are termed as Terminal cash flow. The terminal cash flow comprises of the salvage value of the plant and equipment deducting the tax from the termination of the assets and the net working capital recovered. In this particular investment the salvage value of the plant equipment is $0 after the end of 5 years, but there is liquidation of the working capital amounting to $2,400,000. Therefore the Terminal cash flow for this investment will be $ 2,400,000 as highlighted in the table showing the workings of differential cash flow above. 7. A cash flow diagram for this project. Cash Flow is a statement which represents the Cash inflow and outflow for a particular period to determine the cash flow in financing, operating and investing activities. 8. What is the net present value? Thepresent valueof an investments futurenet cash flowsdeducting the initialinvestment is known as the Net present value or (NPV). It compares the value of a dollar today to the value of that same dollar in the future, because a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow considering inflation and returns into account. Any investment rule that does not recognizes the Time value of money cannot be sensible. It is solely dependent on the forecasted cash flows from the project and the opportunity cost of capital. It helps in selecting or making appropriate decisions when the firm has multiple choices. If the net present value of a prospective project is positive or greater than the other project, it should be accepted and if it is negative or lower when compared to other options, it should probably be rejected because cash flows will also be negative. However, if net present value is 0 i.e. neither positive nor negative, which implies that a project implies no monetary value, a d ecision to select or reject that particular proposal should be made considering other factors into account like strategic positioning, risk appetite etc. Therefore it can be said that Net present value expresses whether a particular project or investment will increase the firms value by considering all the cash flows, risk of future cash flows and the time value of money. In consideration with this particular project or investment at Reinaldo products the Net present value is positive as per the calculation mentioned below. Particulars Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Free CF -8,100,000 3,956,000 8,416,000 10,900,000 8,548,000 5,980,000 15 Percent 0.86965 0.75635 0.65785 0.57220 0.49775 Net Present Value -8,100,000 3,440,335.40 6,365,441.60 7,170,565.00 4,891,165.60 2,976,545.00 Total 16,744,052.60 9. What is the internal rate of return? TheInternal rate of return is thediscount ratethat gives anet present valueof zero. It is theaverageannual returnearned through the life of aninvestmentand is computed in several ways. The internalrateofreturnis an important calculation used frequently to determine if a given investment is worthwhile. Depending on themethodused, it can either be theeffective rate of intereston adepositorloan, or thediscount ratethat reduces to zero the net present value of a stream of income inflows andoutflows. An investment is generally considered worthwhile if the internal rate of return is greater than the return of anaveragesimilar investment opportunity, or if it is greater than thecost of capitalof the opportunity. The internal rate of return or the IRR method will usually result in the same decision as the net present value method for non-mutually exclusive projects in an unconstrained environment. Nevertheless, for mutually exclusive projects, the decision rule of taking the project with t he highest IRR may select a project even with a lower net present value. One shortcoming of the IRR method is that it is commonly misunderstood to convey the actual annual profitability of an investment. However, this is not the case because intermediate cash flows are almost never reinvested at the projects IRR and therefore, the actual rate of return is almost certainly going to be lower.