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Investment Decision and Cash Flows

In: Business and Management

Submitted By gowthamig
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INVESTMENT DECISION AND CASH FLOWS A positive net present value (NPV) is a direct estimate of value creation for shareholders and is an operational way of carrying through on the strategy of trying to maximize shareholder wealth. To calculate NPV, however we need to estimate the cash costs and benefits of any decision at hand. In this note we discuss the evaluation of investment proposals.

Cash Flows: Basic Concepts The cash flows that we will use in our analysis are incremental after-tax cash flows. The incremental-cash-flow rule is that the cash flows relevant in analyzing an investment opportunity are those after-tax cash flows and only those after-tax cash flows directly attributable to the investment. The words incremental, after-tax and cash are critical. The term cash calls attention to the fact that we are interested in cash flow and not accounting profits. Ultimately, financial transactions must be carried out with cash, not profits, so we look to cash as the source of value. As we will see, we are interested in all cash flows affected by a decision under evaluation, no matter how those cash flows are classified for accounting purposes. The term after-tax emphasizes that we are able to keep the cash only after payment of taxes. The word incremental is important because in deciding whether to do something, or whether to pick alternative A or alternative B, differences in outcomes are of interest. What changes as a result of the decision? If a firm replaces a piece of machinery, will the firm’s insurance costs change? If not, we can ignore the insurance premiums in our schedule of cash flows to analyze the decision about replacing the machinery. The concept of incremental analysis has wide applicability in decision-making. Incremental analysis applies not just to investment decisions or to financial-management decisions, but to all decisions faced by

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