Finance Theory & Financial Strategy
By Stewart C Myers
How do firms integrate strategic planning and financial analysis? It appears to be somewhat haphazard in many cases. Senior management sets a direction, vision and mission statement based upon who the firm is now and how it has evolved. Then sets the firm’s course based upon their ideas of who they are and who they may wish to become. The finance department that handles the financial planning and analysis may support the strategic initiative in some manner, but not in an integrated, holistic approach.
The firm may evaluate projects based upon the net present value (NPV) of expected cash flows for that project. In a strategic sense, the financial planning deals with the
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One way that some companies appear to address this is by having artificially high required rates of return. This may account for optimistic views, higher risk that may not be identified properly, and the accounting of the financial statements, which may be vastly different than the financial results.
According to Myers, managers distrust the stock market and volatility, even if it is a fact of the market. Middle and senior management tend to look for at job preservation than wonderful opportunities. So keeping their jobs, their income, their perks may be more important that undertaking a new project.
Where financial theory may drop the ball is in estimating the opportunity cost of capital. It is difficult to measure since its an expected rate of return. So one person estimate is 10%, another’s is 12%, another is 14%. Which one is correct? Myers believes that estimating the cash flows is more important than determining the discount rate. This estimate is difficult, so accurate assessment of the mean of cash flows is more important. How can you determine what the future holds? (Ask the marketing department, blame them if it goes
9. Why is the $1,000 you receive today worth more than $1,000 you receive next year? What concept does this illustrate? Why is this concept particularly important when firms evaluate capital budgeting proposals?
Free cash flows of the project for next five years can be calculated by adding depreciation values and subtracting changes in working capital from net income. In 2010, there will be a cash outflow of $2.2 million as capital expenditure. In 2011, there will be an additional one time cash outflow of $300,000 as an advertising expense. Using net free cash flow values for next five years and discount rate for discounting, NPV for the project comes out to be $2907, 100. The rate of return at which net present value becomes zero i.e.
NPV analysis uses future cash flows to estimate the value that a project could add to a firm’s shareholders. A company director or shareholders can be clearly provided the present value of a long-term project by this approach. By estimating a project’s NPV, we can see whether the project is profitable. Despite NPV analysis is only based on financial aspects and it ignore non-financial information such as brand loyalty, brand goodwill and other intangible assets, NPV analysis is still the most popular way evaluate a project by companies.
Finally, in order to complete a more accurate comparison between the two projects, we utilized the EANPV as the deciding factor. Under current accepted financial practice, NPV is generally considered the most accurate method of predicting the performance of a potential project. The duration of the projects is different, one lasts four years and one lasts six years. To account for the variation in time frames for the projects and to further refine our selection we calculated the EANPV to compare performance on a yearly basis.
Advantages- Less liability for stakeholders. Ability to raise funds/capital in the form of stocks as needed.
2. Net Present Value – Secondly, Peter needs to investigate the Net Present Value (NPV) of each project scenario, i.e. job type, gross margin, and # new diamonds drills purchased. The NPV will measure the variance of the present value of cash outflow (drilling equipment investment) versus the future value of cash inflows (future profits), at the benchmark hurdle rate of 20%. A positive NPV associated with the investment means that the investment should be undertaken as it exceeds the minimum rate of return. A higher NPV determines which project scenario will have the highest return on cash flow, hence determining the most profitable investment in terms of present money value.
Evaluating the risks, calculating the probability of success, and factoring in the projected profit from sales will provide a clearer NPV to be compared with other projects in the
The decision making of management is very crucial and involves various analysis to be performed. There are various ratios and methods that can be useful for mitigating the risks and increasing the expected returns with investments. The financial forecast is a mix of the behaviour,
To understand the relationship between strategic and financial planning we first need to determine both of their meanings. The definition of strategic planning states that it is a “systematic process of envisioning a desired future, and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them.” Strategic planning is a management tool that helps an organization focuses its energy, to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and adjust the organization’s direction in response to a changing environment. In short, strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that
Account for time. Time is money. We prefer to receive cash sooner rather than later. Use net present value as a technique to summarize the quantitative attractiveness of the project. Quite simply, NPV can be interpreted as the amount by which the market
Such decisions may affect the company’s profitability today but judging from the fact that high risk means low stock price and vice-versa, high return waits in the future.
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.
1. The net present value is the projects present value of inflows minus its cost. It shows us how much the project contributes to the shareholders wealth. The NPV of each franchise are:
This method is short term oriented and in conflict with the company’s intention to focus on investing in the company’s future
Project appraisal techniques are used to evaluate possible investment opportunities and to determine which of these opportunities will generate the best return to the firm’s shareholders. Therefore, it is vital for the firm if they wish to continue receiving funds from shareholders to employ the best techniques available when analysing which investment opportunities will give the best return. There are two types of project appraisal techniques: non-discounted cash flows and discounted cash flows. The Net Present Value and internal rate of return, examples of discounted cash flows, are in use in many large corporations and regarded as more effective than the traditional techniques of payback and accounting rate of return. In this paper, I