What is cash flow? - Answers the cash available to return to investors and other sources of
financing.
what are the 3 main rules of cash flows? - Answers 1. based on Net/after tax cash flows
2. Always adjust for the time value of money
3. must include all cash flows related, including opportunity costs.
What are decision rules? - Answers methods that we use in the evaluation of projects to see
what we want to invest in
5 types of decision rules - Answers 1. Payback Period
2. Discounted Payback Period
3. IRR
4. NPV
5. Profitability index
Pros and Cons of the Payback period method
(2, 4) - Answers Pros:
- focus on recovering funds quickly
- easy to understand/teach
Cons:
- short term focus at the expense of long term profit
- ignores timing and the magnitude of later cash flows.
- ignores risk
- doesn't allow ranking
What does it mean if the IRR is larger than the WACC? - Answers that we are earning more than
what it costs us. Making profit.
, Pros and Cons of IRR (3, 2) - Answers Pros:
- incorporates risk of cash flows.
- accounts for timing of cash flows
- allows for ranking based on return.
Cons:
- does not show magnitude of earnings.
- cannot have more than 1 neg. cash flow.
What is the best and worst method for project selection? - Answers Best: NPV
Worst: payback period
Pros and Cons of the NPV method (4, 1) - Answers pros:
- adjusted for timing of cash flows
- considers all cash flows
- can handle multiple neg. cash flows
- considers magnitude
always accept the same projects whether using IRR or NPV
Cons:
- doesn't allow for ranking.
What is the solution to the NPV method? - Answers Profitability Index.
Allows ranking of projects.
Takes the PV of all future cash flows and divides it by the cost of the project.
What is Economic Value Added used to do? - Answers evaluate the effectiveness of employees
and operating units.