Capital Investment Decisions: the Case of Diamond Plc

IRR uses all cash flows and incorporates the time value of money. When evaluating independent projects, IRR will always lead to the same decision as NPV. Because IRR assumes that cash flows will be reinvested at the internal rate of return, which is not always or even usually the case, it can rank mutually exclusive projects incorrectly. With certain patterns of cash flows, the IRR equation has more than one solution, which confuses the decision rule. IRR is slightly more

Myers (1977), Smith and Watts (1992) have found that firm value depends on the future opportunities. If there are lots of investment opportunities available to the firms, it seems that this firm has the capability to generate more cash flow to the firm and to the shareholders. Consequently, this will be reflected in the stock price. So, the value of a firm having much more investment opportunities will be higher compared with the one of a firm with limited set of investment opportunities, which is supported by the result form Allayannis (2001). As an indicator of investment opportunities for the company, PPE, the ratio of a firm's capital expenditures for property, plant, and equipment to total assets and R & D is the ratio

In contrast, when capital rationing constraints occur over multiple periods and when there are numerous projects, Baumol and Quandt (1965) suggest that mathematical programming may be used to evaluate investments. The linear programming technique is widely used as the model is specifically designed to search through combinations of projects achieving the highest NPV whilst subject to a budget constraint. However, Brealy et al (2008) note that a main disadvantage to using linear programming may be the models can be highly complex and costly.

Capital planning and budgeting is a very vital piece in the Public Budgeting System process. It is an essential implement in the financial management practice and is effective in both public and private organizations. It is the method which consists of the determination and the evaluation of the investments and the possible expenses by an organization. As explicate by Lee, Johnson, & Joyce (2008), capital budgets help in determining how much of each form of investment is needed, and it supports an organization in assessing the available revenue which includes loans is required to finance those investments (p. 475). Capital budgeting is a central part of the universal

Net Present Value (NPV) calculates the sum of discounted future cash flows and subtracting that amount with the initial investment of the project. If the NPV of a project results in a positive number, the project should be undertaken. It is the most widely used method of capital budgeting. While discount rate used in NPV is typically the organization’s WACC, higher risk projects would not be factored in into the calculation. In this case, higher discount rate should be used. An example of this is when the project to be undertaken happens to be an international project where the country risk is high. Therefore, NPV is usually used to determine if a project will add value to the company. Another disadvantage of NPV method is that it is fairly complex compared to the other methods discussed earlier.

This case study analyzed five different projects Target Corporation had to decide on capital spent for which project created the most value and the most growth for the company and its shareholders. By analyzing the financial statements and exhibits of each project, I was able to determine the positives and negatives of each of these alternatives. The alternatives were Gopher Place, Whalen Court, The Barn, Goldie’s Square, or Stadium Remodel.

The use of an accounting rate of return also underscores a project 's true future profitability because returns are calculated from accounting statements that list items at book or historical values and are, thus, backward-looking. According to the ARR, cash flows are positive due to the way the return has been tabulated with regard to returns on funds employed. The Payback Period technique also reflects that the project is positive and that initial expenses will be retrieved in approximately 7 years. However, the Payback method treats all cash flows as if they are received in the same period, i.e. cash flows in period 2 are treated the same as cash flows received in period 8. Clearly, it ignores the time value of money and is not the best method employed. Conversely, the IRR and NPV methods reflect that The Super Project is unattractive. IRR calculated is less then the 10% cost of capital (tax tabulated was 48%). NPV calculations were also negative. We accept the NPV method as the optimal capital budgeting technique and use its outcome to provide the overall evidence for our final decision on The Super Project. In this case IRR provided the same rejection result; therefore, it too proved its usefulness. Despite that, IRR is not the most favorable method because it can provide false results in the case where multiple negative

In fully investigating all of our calculations we are fully invested in using the Net Present Value figures we calculated as a means of ranking the eight projects. In doing so we found reasons in which why the Net Present Value was our benchmark for ranking the projects and why we did not use the Payback Method. The Payback Method ignores the time value of money, requires and arbitrary cutoff point, ignores cash flows beyond the cutoff date, and is biased against long-term projects, such as research and development and new projects. When comparing the Average Accounting Return Method to the Net Present Value method we found that the Average Accounting Return Method is a worse option than using the Payback Method. The Average Accounting Return Method is not a true rate of return and the time value of money is ignored, it uses an arbitrary benchmark cutoff rate, and is based on accounting net income and book values, not cash flows and market values. Plain and simply put, the Net Present Value method is the best criterion to use when ranking these eight

There are several traditional methods that can be used in appraising investment decisions. For instance, the net present value method (NPV) which entails estimating the costs and revenues of a project and discounting these figures to get their present values. Projects with the biggest positive net present value are the ones chosen as they represent the best stream of benefits of investing in the project over and above recovering the cost of initiating the projects. The discount rate is another method which is similar to the net present value method but reflects more on the time preference. This approach may focus on the opportunity cost of

Capital budgeting is the most important management tool that enables managers of the organization to select the investment option that yields comprehensive cash flows and rate of return. For managers availability of capital whether in form of debt or equity is very limited and thus it become imperative for them to invest their limited and most important resource in perfect option that could prove to beneficial for the organization in the long run (Hickman et al, 2013). However, while using capital budgeting tool managers must understand its quantitative and qualitative considerations that are discussed below.

The internal rate of return (IRR) and the net present value (NPV) techniques are 2 investment decision tools that satisfy the 2 major criteria for the correct evaluation of capital projects. This criterion is that the techniques should incorporate the use of cash flows and the use of the time value of money. This makes them viable techniques for evaluating investment proposals.

The five investment appraisal techniques used for this report are the Accounting Rate of Return (ARR), payback period, Net Present Value (NPV), discounted payback and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). The results of the five investment appraisal techniques may not be similar because of differences in their approaches and calculations. However, it is advantageous to use more than one investment appraisal technique and understand the importance and problems of each method before making a final decision.

The following paper analyzes a project from financial perspectives using the capital budgeting techniques like Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR).

The NPV approach can include multiple positive and negative cash flows in its calculations whereas the IRR cannot. The IRR is the discount rate that makes a project break even. If market conditions

Mutually exclusive projects are another situation for which NPV must extend its approach. In such projects, the chosen project is usually one which results in the greatest positive NPV because this will produce the greatest addition to shareholders’ wealth. In the case of mutually exclusive investments, ranking becomes crucial as only