Employing Capital Budgeting and Risk

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Employing Capital Budgeting and Risk

Part A

 

Employing Capital Budgeting and Risk

These resources will help you to complete this discussion:

  • Nockolas, S. (2015). How do you calculate payback period using Excel? Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/051315/how-do-you-calculate-payback-period-using-excel.asp
  • Ross, S. A., Westerfield, R. W., Jaffe, J. F., & Jordan, B. D. (2018). Corporate finance: Core principles and applications (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
    • Chapter 9, “Risk Analysis, Real Options, and Capital Budgeting,” pages 262–286. The concept of risk is introduced in this chapter.
  • Sham, G. (n.d.). Capital budgeting: Wrapping it all up. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/university/capital-budgeting/conclusion.asp

Risk is an important aspect of business and investment. The impact of risk needs to be measured on all capital projects and investments. In fact, most accomplished investors consider the measure and management of risk to be more important than the consideration of investment return. If risk is considered effectively, the returns will tend to take care of themselves.

To gain a full understanding of the impact of risk on the success or failure of capital projects, you can see the different views of risk and that all should be considered. For this discussion, you are a financial analyst of a mid-sized corporation, and the CFO has come to you with a pet investment project. The CEO has done a preliminary analysis using NPV, IRR, payback period, and PI, and it appears to be a worthy project that should add significant value to the firm. However, the CFO has a feeling that the CEO has failed to incorporate risk into the analysis. He has asked you do some risk analysis of the project to see if that will alter the final decision to invest or not.

Prepare a post that responds to these questions:

  • What type of risk analysis would you incorporate into your analysis?
  • How reliable are these analyses?

Make sure you provide examples and resources to support your statements.

Part B

Evaluation of Capital Projects

Introduction

This assignment is about one of the basic functions of the finance manager, which is allocating capital to areas that will increase shareholder value and add the most value to the company. This means forecasting the projected cash flows of the projects and employing capital budgeting metrics to determine which project, given the forecast cash flows, gives the firm the best chance to maximize shareholder value. As a finance professional, you are expected to:

  • Use capital budgeting tools to compute future project cash flows and compare them to upfront costs.
  • Evaluate capital projects and make appropriate decision recommendations.
  • Prepare reports and present the evaluation in a way that finance and non-finance stakeholders can understand.

Scenario

Senior leadership has now called upon you to analyze three capital project requests based on forecasted cash flow as they relate to maximizing shareholder value.

Your Role

You are one of Maria’s high-performing financial analyst managers at ABC Healthcare Corporation and she trusts your work and leadership. Senior leadership was impressed with your presentation in the Unit 2 assignment and they are tasking you with the analysis of these three proposed capital projects based on forecasted cash flow. You have completed forecasting the projected cash flows of the projects as reflected in the attached spreadsheets. You now need to conduct your analysis recommending which will provide the most shareholder value to the organization.

Requirements

  • Use capital budgeting tools to compute future project cash flows and compare them to upfront costs. Remember to only evaluate the incremental changes to cash flows.
  • Employing capital budgeting metrics, determine which project, given the forecast cash flows, gives the organization the best chance to maximize shareholder value.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of a variety of capital budgeting tools including net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), payback period, and profitability index (PI). The analysis of the capital projects will need to be correctly computed and the resulting decisions rational.
  • Evaluate capital projects and make appropriate decision recommendations. Accurately compare the indicated projects with correct computations of capital budgeting tools and then make rational decisions based on the findings.
  • Select the best capital project, based on data analysis and evaluation, that will add the most value for the company. Provide a rationale for your recommendations based on your financial analysis.
  • Prepare reports and present the evaluation in a way that finance and non-finance stakeholders can understand.

 

Project A: Major Equipment Purchase
  • A new major equipment purchase, which will cost $10 million; however, it is projected to reduce cost of sales by 5% per year for 8 years.
  • The equipment is projected to be sold for salvage value estimated to be $500,000 at the end of year 8.
  • Being a relatively safe investment, the required rate of return of the project is 8%.
  • The equipment will be depreciated at a MACRS 7-year schedule.
  • Annual sales for year 1 are projected at $20 million and should stay the same per year for 8 years.
  • Before this project, cost of sales has been 60%.
  • The marginal corporate tax rate is presumed to be 25%.