Introduction
Project managers should carry out financial analyses on capital investments. This is necessary because capital investments require a large amount of initial capital outlay. Secondly, the benefits from such investments flow in for a long period. Thirdly, capital investment decisions in most cases deal with an organization’s optimal capital structure that is, in terms of sourcing for funds either of debt and equity (Brigham and Ehrhardt 2010). Therefore, analysis of the project should be done before sourcing funds. Therefore, these projects are irreversible. Finally, capital is a limited resource. Organizations and even nations lack adequate resources to invest in all projects. Therefore, it is necessary to appraise all feasible projects. Resources should be dedicated to ventures with high returns.
Necessary information
Capital budgeting is a multi-dimensional process with distinctive stages. A commonly used model comprises strategic planning, making accept or reject decisions, project implementation and monitoring, and project implementation audit (Dayananda, Irons, Harrison, Herbohn, & Rowland 2002). The essence of this procedure is to ensure that a project manager selects a viable project for investment. This treatise looks at the viability of the proposed venture using various capital budgeting techniques. It also calculates the weighted cost of capital of the company.
The weighted average cost of capital
Adding up together the various sources of capital estimates the weighted average cost of capital. This requires a decision to be taken on the appropriate amount of debt and capital to be included in the capital structure. This determines the value each adds to the capital structure (Shapiro, 2005).
Table 1.0: Weighted average cost of capital
Capital Budgeting techniques
Net present value
Net present value is the “present value of a project’s cash inflow minus the present value of its costs” (From the computations above, the weighted average of capital for the company is 9.98%. The weighted average cost of capital highly depends on the capital structure of the company. The management needs to decide on the favorable mix of various sources of capital these are, debt and equity (Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2010). This approach shows how much a project contributes to the shareholders’ fund. High returns will result in an increase in share prices. An advantage of the net present value is that it is easy to compute.. A drawback of this approach is that it is sensitive to changes in the discount rate. The selection criterion will be the amount of the net present value. A project with a positive net present value will be viable.
Table 1.1 Net present values
The above table shows the computation of net present value. Depreciation is used to compute the annual tax expense. Secondly, the computations require only the incremental cash flows over the five-year period. From the computations above, the net present value of the proposed venture is $775, 623.62. Since its positive, it indicates that the project is viable.
Payback period
Payback period is “the number of years required to recover a project cost” (Brigham & Ehrhardt 2010). This approach has a number of drawbacks. First, “it ignores cash flows beyond the payback period, it does not consider the time value of money and it does not have a precise acceptance rule” (Brigham & Ehrhardt 2010). The decision criterion is to accept a project with a shorter payback period.
Computation of payback period
Initial investment outlay            $3,000,000
Annual cash flow                    $204,000
Therefore, the payback period is 3,000,000/996,000 = 3.01years
From the computations above, the project has a payback period of 3.01years. This implies that the project will take 3.01years to recoup the initial investment cost.
Internal rate of return
Internal rate of return is a unique discount rate which when applied to both cash inflows and cash outflows over the investments economic life provides a zero net present value (Powell and Baker, 2005).
Table 1.2: Internal rate of return
Internal rate of return = 10% + 775,624 = 35.85%
3,000,000
Conclusion
From the above analysis, the net present value of the project is $775, 623.62 and the payback period is 3.01 years. The project has a high internal rate of return of 35.85%. It is clear that the project is viable and shareholders will get a high return from their investments.
Appendix
Appendix 1: Computation of tax expense
References
Brigham, F. & Ehrhardt, M. (2010). Financial management theory and practice. United States of America: Joe Sabatino.
Dayananda, D., Irons, R., Harrison, S., Herbohn, J., & Rowland, P. (2002). Capital budgeting: Financial appraisal of investment projects. United Kingdom: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
Powell, G. & Baker, H. (2005). Understanding Financial Management: A Practical Guide. Australia: Blackwell Publishing.
Shapiro, C. (2005). Capital budgeting and investment analysis. USA: Pearson/Prentice Hall.