Professional Documents
Culture Documents
NPV Analysis
The recommended approach to any significant
capital budgeting decision is NPV analysis.
NPV = PV of the incremental benefits – PV of
the incremental costs.
When evaluating independent projects, take a
project if and only if it has a positive NPV.
When evaluating interdependent projects, take the
feasible combination with the highest total NPV.
The NPV rule appropriately accounts for the
opportunity cost of capital and so ensures the
project is more valuable than comparable
alternatives available in the financial market.
Internal Rate of Return
Definition: The discount rate that sets the NPV of a
project to zero is the project’s IRR.
Conceptually, IRR asks: “What is the project’s rate
of return?”
Standard Rule: Accept a project if its IRR is greater
than the appropriate market based discount rate,
reject if it is less. Why does this make sense?
For independent projects with “normal cash flow
patterns” IRR and NPV give the same conclusions.
IRR is completely internal to the project. To use the
rule effectively we compare the IRR to a market rate.
IRR – “Normal” Cash Flow Pattern
Consider the following stream of cash flows:
0 1 2 3
-1
NPV
-1.5
-2
-2.5
-3
Discount Rate
Pitfalls of IRR cont…
3
2.5
2
1.5
NPV
1
0.5
0
-0.5 0 10 15 20 40
Discount Rate
Pitfalls of IRR cont…
Mutually exclusive projects:
IRR can lead to incorrect conclusions
about the relative worth of projects.
Ralph owns a warehouse he wants to fix
up and use for one of two purposes:
A. Store toxic waste.
B. Store fresh produce.
NPV
2000
1000
0
0% 10% 15%
-1000
Discount Rate
• At low discount rates, B is better. At high discount
rates, A is better.
• But A always has the higher IRR. A common mistake
to make is choose A regardless of the discount rate.
• Simply choosing the project with the larger IRR would
be justified only if the project cash flows could be
reinvested at the IRR instead of the actual market
rate, r, for the life of the project.
Project Scale and the IRR
Because the IRR puts things in terms of
a “rate” it may not tell you what
interests you; which investment will
create the most “wealth”.
Example:
Project Investment Time 1 IRR NPV at 10%
A -$1,000 +$1,500 50% $363.64
B -$10,000 +$13,000 30% $1,1818.18
Summary of IRR vs. NPV
IRR analysis can be misleading if you don’t fully
understand its limitations.
For individual projects with normal cash flows NPV and IRR
provide the same conclusion.
For projects with inflows followed by outlays, the decision
rule for IRR must be reversed.
For Multi-period projects with changes in sign of the cash
flows, multiple IRRs exist. Must compute the NPVs to see
what decision rule is appropriate.
IRR can give conflicting signals relative to NPV when ranking
projects.
I recommend NPV analysis, using others as backup.
Payback Period Rule
Frequently used as a check on NPV analysis or
by small firms or for small decisions.
Payback period is defined as the number of years
before the cumulative cash inflows equal the initial
outlay.
Provides a rough idea of how long invested capital is
at risk.
Example: A project has the following cash flows
Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
-$10,000 $5,000 $3,000 $2,000 $1,000
The payback period is 3 years. Is that good or bad?
Payback Period Rule
An adjustment to the payback period rule that is
sometimes made is to discount the cash flows and
calculate the discounted payback period.
This “new” rule continues to suffer from the problem
of ignoring cash flows received after an arbitrary
cutoff date.
If this is true, why mess up the simplicity of the rule?
Simplicity is its one virtue.
At times the discounted payback period may be
valuable information but it is not often that this
information alone makes for good decision-making.
Economic Profit or EVA
EVA and Economic Profit
Economic Profit
The difference between revenue and the
opportunity cost of all resources consumed in
producing that revenue, including the opportunity
cost of capital
Economic Value Added (EVA)
The cash flows of a project minus a charge for the
opportunity cost of capital
Economic Profit or EVA
EVA When Invested Capital is Constant
EVA in Period n (when capital lasts forever)
EVAn Cn rI
where I is the project’s capital, Cn is the
project’s cash flow at time n, and r is the cost
of capital. (r × I ) is known as the capital
charge
Economic Profit or EVA
EVA When Invested Capital is Constant
EVA Investment Rule
Accept any investment for which the present
value (at the project’s cost of capital) of all
future EVAs is positive.
When invested capital is constant, the EVA rule
and the NPV rule will coincide.
Example
Problem
Ralph has an investment opportunity which
requires an upfront investment of $150 million.
The annual end-of-year cash flows of $14 million
dollars are expected to last forever.
The firm’s cost of capital is 8%.
Compute the annual EVA and the present
value of the project.
Example
Solution
EVA each year is:
EVAn Cn rI
$2 million
PV $25 million
8%
Economic Profit or EVA
EVA When Invested Capital Changes
EVA in Period n (when capital depreciates)
EVAn Cn rI n 1 (Depreciation in Period n)
Where Cn is a project’s cash flow in time period
n, In – 1 is the project’s capital at time n – 1, and
r is the cost of capital
When invested capital changes, the EVA rule
and the NPV rule continue to coincide.
Example
Ralph is considering an investment in a
machine to manufacture rubber chickens.