Investment Appraisal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Investment Appraisal - Essay Example Investment Appraisal The capital budgeting decisions are pertaining to investment decisions which will create assets which will in turn create products/ services which create the profits. Generally, current assets are not earning assets but they act as a buffer for the smooth operations of the business. But the long-term investment decisions includes the mission and visions of the company and hence is of strategic importance. There are various techniques available for the appraisal of investment proposals. They include the traditional methods, discounted cash flow methods. But recently there is a tendency to shift to value management models and modified versions of DCF models is reflected among companies. This essay explains the nature of each method of appraisal and also explains the recent trends to use the value management models with examples. For considering this proposal the management can use the investment appraisal techniques which can be segregated into two groups, first group comprising of traditional methods such as payback period method and average rate of return method and second group comprising of time adjusted methods/ discounted cash flow(DCF) methods such as net present value method, internal rate of return method, net terminal value method and profitability index method. The payback period method is the simplest of all methods and it answers the basic question, how many years will it take for the cash benefits to pay the original cost of investment. Cash benefits under this method represent CFAT ignoring interest payment. The payback period of the investment is compared with the payback period predetermined by the management beforehand. If the proposal has a payback period less than the predetermined payback, then the investment proposal is selected. The major advantage with this method is that it is very simple to understand and calculate. But the serious drawback here is that it ignores all the cash inflows after the payback period and it does not differentiate between the projects based on the timing and magnitude of cash flows. The next method is the Accounting rate of return (ARR) method. The ARR is calculated as (Average annual profits after taxes / Average investment) x 100. If the Average rate of return is higher than the predetermined minimum rate of return then the investment proposal is selected. The advantage of this method over the payback period method is that it takes into account entire cash flows over the life time of the project unlike the former. But the major drawback here is that it takes the accounting income for the analysis but not the cash flows. Like the payback period method also does not take into account the time value of money. When the time value of money is not taken into consideration when evaluating investment proposals the chances of choosing the wrong proposals are more. From the information provided Hence, the Time adjusted methods/ discounted cash flow (DCF) methods are widely used for making decisions in corporations. The Net present value method is described as the summation of the present values of cash proceeds (CFAT) in each year minus the summation of the present values of the net cash outflows in each year. The decision rule for this method is that when NPV> zero, accept the prpoposal and if NPV < zero, reject the proposal. The first and foremost advantage of this