Long Term Investment Decisions

On the horizon, Blockbusters number of competitors should steadily increase from new emerging technologies. If Blockbuster extends into the realm of VOD, Legal Movie Downloads, or Digital Video Recorders (DVR), it must realize there are existing and powerful players in these markets already. This new technology is shaping the market for many deals or partnerships. They will face fierce competition, but in the future, Blockbuster must not find it self on the outside looking in.

A group of investors (Arundel group) is looking into the idea of purchasing the sequel rights associated with films produced by one or more major movie studios. Movie rights are to be purchased prior to films being made. Arundel wants to come up with a decision to either purchase all the sequel rights for a studio's entire production during a specified period of time or purchase a specified number of major films. Arundel's profitability is dependent upon the price it pays for a portfolio of sequel rights. Our analysis of Arundel's proposal includes a net present value calculation of each movie production company. In order to decide whether Arundel can make money buying movie

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.

Star Appliance is looking to expand their product line and is considering three different projects: dishwashers, garbage disposals, and trash compactors. We want to determine which project would be worth doing by determining if they will add value to Star. Thus, the project(s) that will add the most value to Star Appliance will be worth pursuing. The current hurdle rate of 10% should be re-evaluated by finding the weighted average cost of capital (WACC). Then by forecasting the cash flows of each project and discounting them by the WACC to find the net present value, or by solving for the internal rate of return, we should be able to see which projects Star should undertake.

The movie studios want customers to be able to get their movies and entertainment as easily as possible. The easier it is for people to acquire their products the more likely it is that they will. By offering many different options for customers to obtain movies and entertainment, Blockbuster has a strategic advantage over its competitors. The convenience that Blockbuster can offer in their ability to distribute the movie studios products is a definite advantage. Another advantage

Investment decisions companies make today will have a direct impact on their ability to reach financial objectives. Most companies are faced with questions such as: which projects should your company invest in, which returns are needed and what risks are the company willing to take to achieve company goals?

The cofounders of Compass Records, a small, independent music recording company, must decide whether to produce and own the next album of an up-and-coming folk musician, or simply license her finished recording. The case presents information sufficient to build cash flow forecasts for either investment alternative. The task for the students is to build a valuation model for the two capital investment alternatives, whereby they can evaluate the attractiveness of the investment based on net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return (IRR) of the discounted cash flows (DCF). Further, the student will have the opportunity to interpret those results and to test those measures’

Blockbuster is the largest movie rental retailer. With its opening in 1985, Blockbuster has pursued an ambiguous program of growth and expansion. Currently, Blockbuster owns and operates over 9,000 stores both domestically and internationally. In addition, Blockbuster franchises about a quarter of its stores. It is important to note that Blockbuster is undergoing a managerial struggle at the present time. The current CEO, John Antioco, and a major shareholder, Carl Icahn, are disputing Blockbuster’s strategy. Mr. Antioco has threatened to resign if Mr. Icahn succeeds at attaining a position on the Board of Directors1. Mr. Antioco believes that Blockbuster needs to develop new strategy to respond to the current market

Blockbuster’s restructuring of the company under its new owners shows how they were open to organizational change. The text describes organizational change as the movement of an organization from one state of affairs to another. Blockbuster completely changed their strategy and technology in order to compete with the new technology based companies that put them in this position in the first place. Simply put, no one visited the stores to rent movies when they could just turn on their television to order on-demand showings for the exact same price without leaving their home or grab a couple movies for a dollar apiece while grocery shopping. If they did not change they were sure to fail as a business and the company would disappear into the long list of companies that failed in the economic recession. The change was forced by other companies’ utilization of technology that caused a drastic change in the market conditions. This shift enabled the cheaper, more convenient home entertainment to steal a huge chunk of market share from Blockbuster’s traditionally structured company. Blockbuster enjoyed a long period on top of the movie rental/ home entertainment industry and this could possibly be what caused the success of these newer

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

Johnson Controls, Inc. is a global company that offers services and products aimed at optimizing operational efficiencies and energy of buildings, electronics, automotive batteries and interior systems for automobiles. The company’s headquarters are located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange as a fortune 500 company. Johnson Controls predicts that it will be able to increase its capital expenditures investments by $1.7 billion approximately. Most of the planned capital spending by the company will go to financing margin expansion and growth opportunities. This essay highlights the importance of companies to be able to evaluate investment decisions so that current and capital expenditure on proposed projects and schemes can be done prudently to ensure the company’s success (Johnson Controls (2015).

The presence of Netflix and Blockbuster in the movie rental industry has assisted me in developing this analysis of each corporation’s strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as followed:

Netflix‘s business model and strategy compare closely to its key rivals. Although, Netflix won a patent that covered much of its business model and could be used to help stifle competition in the future (Thompson C-33) . Netflix has a team of executives that manage only the on-line DVD rental enterprise. They are well established and use a very sophisticated software program thereby making movie selection easy and fun. In my analysis, Blockbuster has many retail stores to contend with and many other facets of a business enterprise, thereby not having a unique team of individuals solely dedicated to the on-line DVD rental business. Wal-Mart would be Netflix’s greatest fear due to the enormous capital available and expertise that could be employed, yet Wal-Mart continues to lag behind Netflix. Wal-Mart’s online software needs a lot of debugging, whereas Netflix had already spent several years debugging its software (Thompson C-37).

External environment is very important for managers to make decision about the company’s direction and strategy. In order to gain a deep understanding of Blockbuster’s industry and competitive environment, the following seven questions need to be answered. Q1: What are the industry’s dominant economic features?

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