Capital Rationing

Finding the perfect capital structure in terms of risk and reward can ensure a company meets shareholder expectations and protects a firm in times of recession. Capital structure refers to how a business puts its money to “work”. The two forms of capital structure are equity capital and debt capital. Both have their benefits and limitations. Striking that perfect balance between the two can mean the difference between thriving versus trying to survive.

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

Capital Budgeting encourages managers to accurately manage and control their capital expenditure. By providing powerful reporting and analysis, managers can take control of their budgets.

Working capital is the key to a successful business. It is like their blood flow and the manager’s job is to help keep it flowing. Under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles working capital is simply the difference between a company’s Current Assets, which are cash, inventory, accounts receivable and prepaid items, and Current Liabilities, accounts payable and accrued expenses.

          The biggest flaw of existing capital budgeting system is rarely as objective. Although the financial

A capital budget is very important for a business. It is a heated subject because a decision about capital budgeting can help the business to determine if the proposed investments or project are worth taking or not. There are two things that a business has to take into consideration when it is making a capital budget decision. First there are financial decisions that have to be made. Second, there is an investment decision that is also

Virtually all general managers face capital-budgeting decisions in the course of their careers. Among the most common of these is the either/or choice about a capital investment. The following describes some general guidelines to orient the decision-maker in these situations.

The management of AYR CO. is considering undertaking a capital-intensive project which has the potential to increase its market share. After an extensive market research into the increase in market demand which is to be expected, two such projects have been identified having the potential to achieve this – Project Aspire and Project Wolf. However, management is able to finance only one of the projects, as a result to the finance constraints and difference in strategic direction between the two projects. It is pertinent to state that this is referred to as capital rationing, which makes a company decide to embark on one project due to limitations beyond their control.

managers may not directly set the cost of capital, they play a large role in determining the capital structure

A capital structure policy aims to balance the trade-off between the benefits of debt financing (interest tax shield) and the costs of debt financing (financial distress and agency costs). Every firm should set its target capital structure such that its cost and benefits of leverage ultimately maximise the firm’s value. Graham and Harvey asked 392 firms’ chief financial officers whether they use target debt ratios. Results show that the majority of them do, although the level of strictness of the target policy varies across different companies. Only 19% of the firms avoid target ratios, of which most are likely to be the relatively smaller firms. This clearly

For instance, the concept of cost estimation which assists in estimating future expenditure as the expenditure depends on the cost of the respective activities can be applied in the setting of a budget which is simply an estimate and schedule of all costs required to be assigned to an activity. One can make an estimation of the resources required for an activity by applying the cost estimation techniques. Since there are limiting factors to each activity such as scarcity of resources for activities, the concept of constraints can be applied together with the concept of cost volume profit analysis to ensure that maximum benefits are driven from the scarce resources and the number of activities that are available. This facilitates the allocation of resources that most equitable and profitable. The theory of constraints is also applicable in the process of setting up budgets. In setting up budget one considers the amount of resources that are available and cannot therefore set a budget plan that exceeds the amount of resources that are available. This implies that the budget is constrained by the amount of

These two cases present the capital investment decisions under consideration by executives of a large chemicals firm in January 2001. The A case (case 20) presents a go/no-go project evaluation regarding improvements to a polypropylene production plant. The B case (case 21) reviews the same project but from one level higher, where the executive faces an either/or investment decision between two mutually exclusive projects. The objective of the two cases is to expose students to a wide range of capital budgeting issues:

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.

This article mainly discusses the cost of capital, the required return necessary to make a capital budgeting project worthwhile. Cost of capital includes the cost of debt and the cost of equity. Theorist conclude that the cost of capital to the owners of a firm is simply the rate of interest on bonds.

Jensen (1986) suggests that this problem can be somehow controlled by increasing the stake of managers in the business or by increasing debt in the capital structure, thereby reducing the amount of “free” cash available to managers.