INTRODUCTION
To begin of, the essay will have two parts, part A and part B. Part A will consist of two sections, section I will provide an explanation for the techniques used for evaluating and assessing an investment. After outlining and explaining these techniques, section II will explain the concept of the time value of money (TVM) and its importance for financial decision making.
PART A
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SECTION I
There are numerous techniques of evaluating an investment which might be typically used by managers in both personal corporations and public corporations. Every of these measures is meant to be a sign of profit for a project or investment. Some of these measures imply the scale of the profit at a particular point in time; others provide the rate of return in line with period while the capital is in use or when reinvestments are included. This section of the essay will discuss the internal rate of return (IRR), payback period (PBP) and the net present value (NPV) approaches for a project evaluation.
The internal rate of return (IRR)
“The internal rate of return is the interest rate at which the net present value of all the cash flows (both positive and negative) from a project or investment equals zero” (investinganswers.com), meaning IRR is the rate of return that makes the sum present value of future cash flows and the final market value of a project (or investment) equals its current market value. The higher a project’s internal rate of return, the extra desirable it is to adopt the investment or project.
Ross (2013) calls IRR, the most important alternative to NPV and Graham (2001) said it’s the most used measure for evaluating projects. Graham (2001) claims that in 2001 75,6 percent of CFOs use the IRR method when comparing and deciding between capital projects. “The basic rationale behind the IRR method is that it provides a single number summarizing the merits of a project” (Ross 2013). It doesn’t depend on anything except the cash flows of the project, because the number is internal or intrinsic. It is pretty similar to the NPV formula:
IRR can be mathematically calculated using the formula:
C0+(C1/1+r1)+(C2/1+r2)+(C3/1+r3)+ … +(Cn/1+rn) = 0
In which
C0 – the cash outflow generated in length No= zero
C – the cash flow generated in the particular duration (the last duration being ‘n’).
IRR, denoted via ‘r’ is to be calculated with the aid of employing trial and blunders method or use built-in functions from excel.
There are several advantages when it comes to the IRR. But the main aspect is that it provides a need that NPV doesn’t; a rule that summarizes the information of a project in a single rate of return. A big plus is that it takes the TVM into consideration unlike the payback period method. After calculated, it is very simple to interpret and therefor easy to visualize for managers.
The main disadvantage is that the economies of scale are ignored. A second disadvantage is one that arises when there are conventional cash flows. In those cases, the NPV will equal zero more than one time, which will lead to multiple IRRs. In these cases, the IRR method simply cannot be used here. Actually, to deal with this difficulty, a modified internal rate of return is regularly used.
A third disadvantage to the IRR method is that it has impractical implicit of the reinvestment rate. Even though it is rarely the case where a firm has the same reinvestment rate, the IRR method implies continues to assume that the firm will make another investment at the same rate even though that is close to impossible.
The payback Period(PBP)
The payback period is described as the time required to get back the initial funding in an investment or project. The payback period technique of financial appraisal is used to evaluate capital initiatives and to calculate the return per year from the start of the investment till the accrued returns are identical to the value of the funding at which point the funding is said to had been paid back and the time taken to attain this payback is called the payback period. Longer payback periods are typically not desirable as investment options for most firms.
The payback approach is computed as follows:
Payback Period= Initial Investment Cash Inflow per Period
“The payback decision rule states that proper investments need to have less than maximum payback period chosen by management” (Berk and DeMarzo, 2017). Payback is said to emphasise the management’s challenge with liquidity and the want to reduce risk via a rapid recovery of the initial funding. It’s frequently used for small expenditures which have apparent benefits that the usage of extra sophisticated capital budgeting strategies isn’t required or justified.
Let’s quickly look at an example to how the payback period method works. Say a firm is handed a project where the initial investment is £50,000, and the cash flows for the next 5 years are £10,000, £20,000, £12,500, £7,500 and £15,000 respectively. This can be shown in Table I:
Table I
Year 0 1 2 3 4 5
Cash Flow (£) -50,000 10,000 20,000 12,500 7,500 15,000
We can also write down investments like the preceding with the notation:
(-£50,000, £10,000, £20,000, £12,500, £7,500, £15,000)
From the table we can see that the investment period would be after 4 years as £10,000 + £20,000 + £12,500 + £7,500 = £50,000. By looking at the multiplication on the last sentence it shows how easy it actually is to calculate the payback period, which is one of its biggest advantages. It allows the managers evaluation process to be done within a relative short time. Companies with limited cash are usually looking for the fastest recovering projects, as it will enhance the reinvestment possibilities for such firms.
However since the payback period method is so simple it is no surprise that it comes with a lot of flaws and shortcomings. The two biggest disadvantages for the PBP method is that it doesn’t take the timing of cash flows into consideration and it ignores the cash flows after the payback period. Let’s start with the first disadvantage.
If we compare project I and project II, where both have a payback period of 2 years. But project I has a cash flow of £80,000 the first year and £160,000 the second, while the cash flows for project II are £160,000 for the first year and £80,000 for the second. Since the large cash flows come first for project II, the net present value of the project is considerably higher even though the payback period for the two projects are identical. Hence the problem will be that when comparing the two projects with each other using the payback period it will be impossible to tell which one is better, while the NPV approach will show differently.
The second disadvantage is, as said earlier, that it ignores cash flows after the cut-off date. Again, let’s use the example from Table I earlier and call it project A, and we add another project called project B. The cash outflows and inflows will be as the following:
Table II
Year 0 1 2 3 4 5
Project A (£) -50,000 10,000 20,000 12,500 7,500 (Project A paid back) 30,000 (Not included in the payback method)
Project B (£) -50,000 17,250 15,000 17,250 (Project B paid back) – –
Here we can see that the payback for project B is after 3 years, while project A still has 4 years. Now if a company was to follow all their investment decisions only based on the payback period method, it would choose project B as it has the shortest payback period of 3 years. But if we add up all the cash inflows the company would get for the different projects, project Y would break even while project A will make a profit of £30,000. Therefor company has to use the payback period wisely, so it doesn’t miss profitable projects where the cash inflows continue long after the cut-off date.
A third disadvantage with the PBP method is that it doesn’t consider time value of money. There is no discount rate for the inflows that occur in the later stages.
Net Present Value(NPV)
The Net present value is as the difference between the prevailing present value of the cost inflows and the present value of the cash outflows. When computing the investment net present value, the cash flows going on at unique factors in time are adjusted for the time cost of money the usage of a reduction rate this is the minimum fee of return required for the project to be proper. As Ross (2013) states in his book, a project should be accepted if the NPV is greater than zero and rejected if it is less than zero.
The NPV is computed as follows:
NPV=n=0NCn1+rn
where
C – the Cash Flow generated in the specific period,
n – time index
N – the last period when cash flows take place
r – relevant discount rate
Note that higher NPVs are more desirable. The specific decision rule for NPV is as follows:
NPV ? 0, reject project
NPV ; 0, accept project
“Whilst making an investment choice, take the opportunity with the
Highest NPV. Choosing this opportunity is equivalent to receiving its NPV in cash today” (Berk and DeMarzo, 2017). That is called the NPV rule. But, if the NPV is zero, the manager has to decide whether to simply accept or reject depending on numerous elements, including there might be a better investment to be made some other place that might produce better return. It will be a que of opportunity cost. The idea of the rule is if a firm accepts an investment with positive net present value, it’s going to gain the shareholders, because the value of the firm will add (thinking about no different situations) by means of the amount of the NPV. That is called additivity, this means that that the value of the company is truly the value of investment, or different projects in the firm.
An organization must not forget the idea of ‘time value of money’ (TVM). TMV means that if £1 is invested today in bank, with an interest of 7% per annum, in twelve months it’ll be £1.07 due to the fact the financial institution compensates the buyers for borrowing their money. Now if you reverse the equation. £1 in 12 months with the equal interest of 7% equals £0.9346 nowadays (Berk and DeMarzo, 2017). The primary advantage with the net present value approach in line with Ross (2013) is that is uses cash flows, it consists of all the cash flows of the project and that it rightly discounts the cash flows well. NPV can handle a couple of discount rate without any problems. Every cash flow can be discounted one by one from the others.
The main drawback to the net present value technique is that it’s sensitive to discount rates. By using surely adjusting a discount rate that is not possible to realize for sure is right or incorrect, a manager can move from creating a profit to losing. All of it depends on whether or not the investment is regarded as safe or not and from there, one may also determine on what discount rate may be handy. It makes a big drawback to the NPV rule. The NPV excludes the value of any actual options which could consist within the investment and it does not take acknowledgement to the size of an investment.
SECTION II
Time value of Money(TMV)
The time value of money (TVM) is one of the primary ideas of finance developed by Leonardo Fibonacci in 1202. The time value of money (TVM) is primarily based on the basis that one will opt to acquire a certain amount of money today than the identical quantity within the future. As a result, whilst one deposits cash in a financial institution account, one needs interest. Cash obtained now is more valuable than cash obtained in the future by way of the amount of interest we can earn with the money. If $9 now will accumulate to $10 in 12 months from now, then the present cost of $10 to be acquired a year from now’s $9.
To fully apprehend time value of money one ought to first understand some terms. Present value and future value are absolutely one of a kind, it just relies upon on how they are used. Of course, present value is what you’ve got now at present time. Whilst future value is the amount of cash you’ll have at a given time inside the future. Interest rates change every day; so, one can be losing whilst the alternative is gaining. Money is thought to be worth more now inside the present time than within the future. It’s far really worth greater now because you may make investments with it and earn interest.
According to (Berk and DeMarzo, 2017) to adjust the time value money, we use these methods where,
FVn = Future value of the initial flow n year hence
PV = Initial cash flow
r = Annual rate of Interest
(1 + r)n = future value interest factor
n = number of years
g = growth rate
C = constant cash flow
N = periods
1. Present value: This component is used to bargain future money streams. It converts future quantities to their equivalent modern-day quantities. PV = FVn / (1 + r) ^n
Example: £50 in 1year from now with expected value of go back of 10%.
PV = 100/ (1 + .05) ^1
PV = 45.45
2. Future value: This method is used to compound cash into the equal amount while within the future (i.e., to compound money either in a lump sum or streams of rate). FVn = PV * (1 + r) ^n
Instance: $100 invested today at an interest rate of 10% for 1 year
FVn = 100 x (1 + .10) ^1
FV = 110.00
3. A perpetuity is a constant cash flow C paid every period, forever. The present value of a
perpetuity is C/r
In a growing perpetuity, the cash flows grow at a constant rate g each period. The
present value of a growing perpetuity is C/r – g
4. An annuity is a constant cash flow C paid every period for N periods. The present value of an annuity is C *1/r (1-(1/ (1 + r) ^N)
The future value of an annuity at the end of the annuity is C *1/r (1+(1 + r) ^N – 1)
The present value of a growing annuity is C *1/r – g (1 – (1 + g/1 + r) ^N)
5. The rule of ’72 is a method for estimating an investment’s doubling time, or halving time (Wikipedia, 2018). It basically is a quick way to find out how long it would take for an investment to double. “The rule of 72 is an old accounting rule. This rule tells us that if we divide the number 72 by the rate of return, say 6%, how long it will take to double the money? We use 6% because it has long been recognized as a very good long-term rate of return. If we divide 72 by 6%, we would learn that money would double in 12 years” (Dobbs, 2007).
Many monetary preparations (including bonds, different loans, leases, salaries, membership dues, annuities, directly-line depreciation rates) stipulate payment schedules, which is to mention payment of the equal quantity at ordinary time durations. The term annuity is often used to consult this type of association whilst discussing calculation of present value, whether or not the arrangement is a retirement plan. The expressions for the present value of such payments quantity to summations of geometric collection.
A periodic quantity receivable indefinitely is called a perpetuity and is of mainly theoretical interest. A perpetuity receivable starting at the present time is known as a perpetuity due.
A finite range (n) of periodic payments, receivable at times 1 thru n, is an annuity instantaneous. Once more assuming value size of 1, its present value differs from the present cost of the corresponding perpetuity immediately by way of an amount this is the prevailing value of all the bills numbered n + 1 and above.
The whole discussion to date makes some widespread assumptions:
1. That it is not essential to account for rate inflation.
2. That we are able to live long enough, or the organisation will survive long sufficient to receive payments receivable inside the future.
TVM is an element in finding out when to issue stock and what kind, whether or not to buy with the use of credit or cash, timing of acquisitions, and many others. Organizations have a balancing act to preserve to stay healthful and to prosper now as well as in the future.
People and households should consider time value of money in finding out a way to invest for retirement or college costs, whether or not or no longer to buy on credit or keep up for important purchases, whilst to buy a residence and what kind of to pay for it, etc.
Time value of money serves as the foundation of finance and the way of lifestyles. Any man or woman that has an intention to prosper within the future needs to continually ensure at the weight of the whole thing. Being informed of savings and investing may be very important. Also knowing one of a kind investing companies to be able to manual you in making the right selection. It’s a valuable method in constructing a successful organization in addition to building a sound monetary basis in whole.
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