Exam 11: The Basics of Capital Budgeting

Tesar Chemicals is considering Projects S and L, whose cash flows are shown below. These projects are mutually exclusive, equally risky, and not repeatable. The CEO believes the IRR is the best selection criterion, while the CFO advocates the NPV. If the decision is made by choosing the project with the higher IRR rather than the one with the higher NPV, how much, if any, value will be forgone, i.e., what's the chosen NPV versus the maximum possible NPV? Note that (1) "true value" is measured by NPV, and (2) under some conditions the choice of IRR vs. NPV will have no effect on the value gained or lost.

Projects A and B have identical expected lives and identical initial cash outflows (costs)Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

Which of the following statements is CORRECT? Assume that the project being considered has normal cash flows, with one outflow followed by a series of inflows.

The internal rate of return is that discount rate that equates the present value of the cash outflows (or costs) with the present value of the cash inflows.

The NPV and IRR methods, when used to evaluate two independent and equally risky projects, will lead to different accept/reject decisions and thus capital budgets if the projects' IRRs are greater than their cost of capital.

Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

No conflict will exist between the NPV and IRR methods, when used to evaluate two equally risky but mutually exclusive projects, if the projects' cost of capital exceeds the rate at which the projects' NPV profiles cross.

Small businesses make less use of DCF capital budgeting techniques than large businesses. This may reflect a lack of knowledge on the part of small firms' managers, but it may also reflect a rational conclusion that the costs of using DCF analysis outweigh the benefits of these methods for small firms.

Jazz World Inc. is considering a project that has the following cash flow and WACC data. What is the project's NPV? Note that a project's projected NPV can be negative, in which case it will be rejected.

Conflicts between two mutually exclusive projects occasionally occur, where the NPV method ranks one project higher but the IRR method puts the other one first. In theory, such conflicts should be resolved in favor of the project with the higher IRR.

Fernando Designs is considering a project that has the following cash flow and WACC data. What is the project's discounted payback?

Projects S and L both have an initial cost of $10,000, followed by a series of positive cash inflows. Project S's undiscounted net cash flows total $20,000, while L's total undiscounted flows are $30,000. At a WACC of 10%, the two projects have identical NPVs. Which project's NPV is more sensitive to changes in the WACC?

The phenomenon called "multiple internal rates of return" arises when two or more mutually exclusive projects that have different lives are being compared.

Project S has a pattern of high cash flows in its early life, while Project L has a longer life, with large cash flows late in its life. Neither has negative cash flows after Year 0, and at the current cost of capital, the two projects have identical NPVs. Now suppose interest rates and money costs decline. Other things held constant, this change will cause L to become preferred to S.

Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

The NPV method's assumption that cash inflows are reinvested at the cost of capital is generally more reasonable than the IRR's assumption that cash flows are reinvested at the IRR. This is an important reason why the NPV method is generally preferred over the IRR method.

Thorley Inc. is considering a project that has the following cash flow data. What is the project's IRR? Note that a project's projected IRR can be less than the WACC or negative, in both cases it will be rejected.

Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

Which of the following statements is CORRECT?