Economics Case Study: Olive Hill Farm

required return of 24% for a project of it's risk. The dilemma for General Foods was to

Decision Making Area 3:Investment Decisions * Table of Articles * Summary of Articles * Observations * Conclusion

At the new WACC of 19%, the home appliance and agricultural machinery projects are valued based on their inherent levels of risk. The beta of the industry average home appliance project is 0.95, whereas the beta for the industry average agricultural machine project is calculated as 0.88. CAPM was then employed to find the cost of capital of each project. The cost of capital for the home appliance and agricultural machinery projects were found to be 10.4% and 9.92%, respectively (Appendix B). This analysis allows Star Company to allocate funds to projects that create returns greater than the industry cost of capital for each specific project.

By using the 7.2% after tax rate and assuming the equipment will be sold at the beginning of the 5th year for its book value, if Agro-Chem bought the equipment the company would achieve a project NPV of ($1,043,500.23). In contrast, if Agro-Chem decided to lease the equipment with the same assumptions they would obtain a project NPV of ($1,030,205). Given these assumptions and based off our calculated NPV we recommend that Agro-Chem lease the equipment rather than buy because of the $13,295.23 savings. This $13,295.23 savings is the NAL.

General Foods is a large corporation organized by product lines. They are evaluating Super Project, the manufacture of a new powdered dessert. Crosby Sanberg, a financial analysis manager, must determine the value in accepting the proposal, along with J.C. Kresslin, the Corporate Controller. The Super Project will increase profit with a payback period of less than ten years. The proposed capital investment for the project is $200,000 ($80,000 for building modifications and $120,000 for machinery and equipment) and production would take place

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.

Our approach to valuing the processing plant can easily be decomposed into three distinct steps first, find the value of the foreseeable free cash flows. Next, calculate the terminal value of the project. Finally, take the present value of those flows. The next few paragraphs walk through each of these steps in order of progression.

Financial risks include the short payback period. A 3-year payback period would not allow Hansson the opportunity to breakeven. With a negative NPV in the first 3 years Hansson’s decision to invest in the project would be based on his ability to negotiate a longer contract time. The Net Present Value (NPV) would have to be examined in tandem with the other non-financial variables.

FertiNitro is a project finance transaction, completed in 1998, in Venezuela. FertiNitro, a fertilizer (urea and ammonia) project , was projected that will cost US$1.0 billion. Despite the fact that conventional wisdom suggests that traditional corporate financing should have been used, FertiNitro project based on project financing structure. The difficulties of risk allocation (risk management), the potential additional insurance costs to cover political and consequential losses, the significant amount of time which arises from the detailed due diligence, structuring and negotiating the transaction before implementation and the on-going costs associated with monitoring the project once it is underway were some disadvantages

The present value of the net incremental cash flows, totaling $5,740K, is added to the present value of the Capital Cost Allowance (CCA) tax shield, provided by the Plant and Equipment of $599K, to arrive at the project’s NPV of $6,339K. (Please refer to Exhibit 4 and 5 for assumptions and detailed NPV calculations.) This high positive NPV means that the project will add a significant amount of value to FMI. In addition, using the incremental cash flows (excluding CCA) generated by the NPV calculation, we calculated the project’s IRR to be 28%. This means that the project will generate a higher rate of return than the company’s cost of capital of 10.05%. This is also a positive indication that the company should undertake the project.

Arthur W. Perdue’s quest for excellence in the poultry business began in 1917. Perdue started his company as a table-egg poultry farm. He slowly expanded his egg market by adding a new chicken coop every year. Arthur’s son Frank joined the family business in 1939 after leaving school at the end of his the second year. In 1950 Frank took over leadership of Perdue Farms, which had over 40 employees at the time.

Daryl Buckmeister, CEO of The Chicken Coop, must decide whether to invest in market research, how much money to spend, and which programs to fund. His two vice presidents (of quality and marketing) have presented very different proposals.

* They are on high ground and with Hurricane Floyd coming September of 1999 this could be a big deal.

Identifying the costs and benefits of a project is the first step; the next step is to identifying the value of these components. Monetary values such as income and lost income can be assessed with current values. However to place a value on environmental benefits and costs is more difficult. Harris et al (2006) describes four categories of values they are direct use value which can use market price valuation. Indirect use value is the category used to describe how the project can benefit the environment such as carbon sequestration. Option value takes into account the benefits lost due to irreversibility

The proposed solution to enter into the wireless communication market yields a lower NPV, IRR, and PI than expanding the digital imaging market. In this example of, the NPV decision criterion is to maximize the value of the firm by accepting the project with the highest NPV, provided the NPV is positive ( Sick, 2006, p.1). The decision to accept the digital imaging proposal was accepted but not based on the IRR because this valuation tool is not as reliable as NPV. According to Sick (2006, p.2), IRR is an unreliable way of ranking mutually exclusive projects. Its rankings may conflict with NPV, in which case the NPV rankings are preferred, because they measure increments to wealth.