Preview

Importance of Payback Method in Capital Budgeting Decision

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
17797 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Importance of Payback Method in Capital Budgeting Decision
School of Management

Blekinge Institute of Technology

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PAYBACK METHOD IN CAPITAL BUDGETING DECISION.

By

Alaba Femi, AWOMEWE & Oludele Olawale, OGUNDELE

Supervisor: Anders Hederstierna

Thesis for the Master’s degree in Business Administration Fall/Spring 2008

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PAYBACK METHOD IN CAPITAL BUDGETING DECISION.

By

Alaba Femi, AWOMEWE & Oludele Olawale, OGUNDELE

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MBA (Master of Business Administration)

Blekinge Institute of Technology

2008

Supervisor Anders Hederstierna

ii

Abstract Title: The importance of the Payback method in Capital budgeting decision.

Authors: Alaba Femi, Awomewe and Oludele Olawale, Ogundele

Supervisor: Anders Hederstierna

Department: School of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology

Course: Master’s thesis in business administration, 15 credits (ECTS).

Background and Problem Discussion: The capital budgeting decision has been a very typical issue in the sustenance of a company. Several companies have lost their identity or liquidated due to wrong capital budgeting decision they made at one particular time or the other. Based on these prevalent problems in industries and the effect of globalisation on industries, it is important to use effective method to analyse investment before decision is made. Capital budgeting is extremely important because the decision made involve the direction and opportunity for future growth of the organisation. One of the traditional methods commonly used for capital investment appraisal by some organizations is the payback method, although this method has been criticized by academicians that it does not include the future cash flow and do not measure profitability. The wide acceptance of this method by practicing managers, has called for investigation as why is the method is still popularly used in organizations. In this thesis work, we



References: Blatt, J.M. (1979). Investment evaluation under uncertainty. Financial Mgmt, 8(2): 66681 [2] Brian Baldwin (1997). Economic justification of process improvement and automation projects, ABB Industrial Systems Inc. Cooper, William D. Morgan et al (2001), Margart Business Forum (online). Available from http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/116186585_1.html (accessed 19/05/08) Don Dayananda et al. (2002). Capital Budgeting: Financial Appraisal of Investment Projects Drury. C. Braund, S., Osborne. P. and Tayles, M. (1993). A Survey of Management Accounting Practices in UK Manufacturing Companies. Chartered Association of Certified Accountants. London Fotsch. R. J. (1983). Machine tool justification policies: their effect on productivity and profitability. J. Manuf. Systems, 3(2): I69 -195. Gert Sandahl and Stefan Sjogre (2003) Capital budgeting methods among Sweden’s largest groups of companies: The state of the art and a comparison with earlier studies. Hoskins, C.G. and Mumey, G.A., (1979). Payback: a maligned method of asset ranking? Eng. Economist, 25(l):53. 65. Lefley F. (1996). The payback method of investment appraisal: A review and synthesis, International Journal of Production Economics 44 (3) (1996) 207-224 and Northcott D. Northcott, Capital Investment Decision-Making, Academic Press, New York, 1992. Longmore, D. (1989). The persistence of the payback method: a time-adjusted decision rule perspective. Eng. Economist, 34(3): 1855194 McIntyre A.D and Coulthurst, N.J, (1986). Capital budgeting practices in medium-sized businesses A survey. A Research Report, Institute of Cost and Management Accountants, London. McIntyre A., Coulthurst N. (1987), Planning and control of capital investment in mediumsized UK companies, Management Accounting 65 (3) 39-40. Meir Statman and James F.Sepe. (1984) Managerial incentive plans and the use of the payback method. Journal of Business Finance is/ Accounting, 11(1). MJ du Toit and A Pienaar (2005). A review of the capital budgeting behavior of large South African firms. Meditari Accountancy Research Vol.13 No 1; pp19-27 Numminen Emil, (2008). Software Investments under Uncertainty, Pg 26 - 27 63 Oblak D.J. and Helm Jr. R.J. (1980). Survey and analysis of capital budgeting methods used by multinationals. Financial Mgmt. 9(4): 37741. Petty J.W., Scott Jr., D.F. and Bird. M.M., (1975). The capital expenditure decision-making process of large corporations Eng. Economist, 20(3): 159- 172. Pike, R.H. (1985). Disenchantment with DCF promotes IRR. Certified Accountant July: 1417 Rappaport. A. (1965). The discounted payback period. Mgmt. Services July/August: 30-36 Runyon, L.R. (1983) Capital expenditure decision making in small rms, Journal of Business Research 11 (3) 15-22. Schall L. D., Sundem. G. L. and Geijsbeek Jr. W. R. (1978). Survey and analysis of capital budgeting methods. J. Finance. 33(I): 281-288. Segelod E. (1995), Resource Allocation in Divisionalized Groups, Ashgate, Avebury. Statman, M. and Sepe, J.F., (1984). Managerial incentive plans and the use of the payback method. J. Bus. Finance Act, 1 l (1): 61-65. Stefan Yard (1999). Developments of the payback method Int. J. Production Economics 67 (2000) 155 – 167 Woods M Pokorny, M. Lintner, V. and Blinkhorn, M. (1985). Appraising investment in new technology Mgmt.Act, October: 42243 Yard S, 1987. Kalkyllogik och Kalkylkrav-Samband Mellan Teori och Praktik vid Kravstallande på Investeringar i Foretag, Lund University Press, Lund, 1987. 64

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Capital Budgeting

    • 3650 Words
    • 15 Pages

    A typical capital budgeting decision involves commitment of large, initial cash outlay with the benefits spread out in time. The time to recoup initial investment could be long. This makes it imperative for the firm to carefully plan its investments to attain the corporate objectives. Capital Investments are typically irreversible in nature or costly to get out. Unwarranted investments can jeopardize the financial well being of the firm. Capital Budgeting deals with investment in real assets. A project requires a large, up front capital investment; generates cash flows for a specified period of time at the end of which the project can be liquidated. The liquidation value of assets at the end of the project life is called Salvage value. It should be noted that the term initial investment is a misnomer. The term is used even when the investment is spread over a number of years. It is indeed the case in many real life situations. A project is shown as a time line diagram below.…

    • 3650 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A capital budgeting decision is characterized by costs and benefits (cash flows) that are spread out over several time periods. This leads to a requirement that the time value of money be considered in order to evaluate the alternatives correctly. Although in actual practice we must consider risk as well as time value, to situations in which the costs and benefits (in terms of cash) are known with certainty. There are sufficient difficulties in just taking the time value of money into consideration without also incorporating risk factors. To arrive at the set of projected incremental cash flows used in evaluating any investment, it is usually necessary to project the impact of the investment on the revenues and expenses of the company. Some investments will affect only the expense components (i.e., cost-saving investments), whereas others will affect revenues as well as costs. Projecting how various expense and revenue items will be affected. If the investment is undertaken is not an easy task, for incremental impacts are often difficult to assess. In some cases, such as the impact of a new product on the sales of an existing product that is considered a substitute, the problem is the uncertain extent of the erosion. In other cases, such as with overhead items (e.g., accounting services, plant security, a regional warehouse system), the problem arises because there is not a well-defined cash flow relationship between the incremental action contemplated and these costs. No exact solution exists to these knotty problems.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    energygel casereport

    • 1671 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The capital budget process in place is to use the payback period and return on invested capital (ROIC) for the project. The payback period criterion is a flawed way to determine the value of the project because it does not take into account cash flows after the required payback period (7 years). For example, if the Energy Gel project had not paid back the initial investment by year seven, but was very profitable in the years before liquidation, it would result in rejecting a profitable project. In addition, because the cutoff period is very subjective and the time value of money and the risk of the project are ignored, we believe the payback period was an ineffective valuation method.…

    • 1671 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Capital budgeting is the processes most organizations use to permit authorize capital spending on long-term projects and other projects requiring significant investment of capital. Typically capital budgeting analysis compares cash inflows and cash outflows instead of net income calculated using the accrual basis. Capital projects are typically evaluated using quantitative analysis and qualitative information. There are two capital budget evaluation processes that take into consideration the time value of money Net Present Value (NPV) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) (Edmonds, 2007).…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Capital Budgeting

    • 2183 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Capital budgeting is one of the most important areas of financial management. There are several techniques commonly used to evaluate capital budgeting projects namely the payback period, accounting rate of return, present value and internal rate of return and profitability index. Recent studies highlight that financial managers worldwide favor methods such as the internal rate of return (IRR) or non-discounted payback period (PP) models over the net present value (NPV), which is the model academics consider superior.…

    • 2183 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Capital Budgeting

    • 267 Words
    • 2 Pages

    [ 3 ]. Jan R. Williams, Susan F. Haka, Mark S. Bettner & Joseph V. Carcello, 14th edition 2008, Financial & Managerial Accounting, The Basis for Business Decisions, McGraw-Hill Irwin,…

    • 267 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. Victoria Chemicals evaluate its capital-expenditure proposals in four ways. They are average annual addition to earnings per share, payback period, net present value, and internal rate of return. An earnings per share method is to indicate a company’s profitability. For Victoria Chemical, this was calculated with the average annual earnings per share contribution of the engineering-efficiency project over its entire economic life. However, for the basis of the calculation, the project’s initiator used the most recent fiscal year-end’s outstanding shares. If possible, using the company’s average weighted number of outstanding shares because this will change over the project’s lifetime. A payback period method is a simple way to decide if this project is reverting from loss to gain within a given period. For Victoria Chemicals engineering-efficiency project, the maximum payback period was six years and the calculation turns out to be 3.8 years. According to this result, the company would accept the project but this method does not consider the possible cash flows after six years. Even though the project is assuming the payback will be in 3.8 years, but it’s unclear how much needs to be invested before the 3.8 years. Next is the net present value which focuses on all cash flows and incorporates discounted cash flows based on time and risk. This is the best method to determine whether to accept the engineering-efficiency project or not because if the result is positive, it will increase shareholders’ wealth. Although the net present value is the best method but it’ll be better if combined with the result of internal rate of returns calculation. The rate shows when the net present value of the project will reach zero. It is an important companion statistic in addition to net present value. The requirement of the engineering-efficient project requires internal rate of returns to be greater than 10% and the result was 24.3%. In conclusion, this project…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “One of the key areas of long-term decision-making that firms must tackle is that of investment - the need to commit funds by purchasing land, buildings, machinery and so on, in anticipation of being able to earn an income greater than the funds committed”. (Investment Appraisal sheet). A Capital Budgeting Process essentially defined as, “the process by which the financial manager decides whether to invest in specific capital projects or assets” (Capital Budgeting, Decision Process, Procedure, definition) is put in place within companies in order to sift through and make decisions regarding viable major investments. The various stages of the Capital Budgeting Process are (a) Forecasting investment decisions; (b) Identifying projects to meet needs; (c) Appraising the investments; (d) Selecting the best alternatives; (e) Making the expenditure; (f) Monitoring projects. (Investment Appraisal sheet). There are also various components of the process which include, the initial investment outlay, which is the initial cash outflow on the purchase of an asset less the net cash proceeds from the disposal of the replaced asset; Net cash savings or benefits or savings from operations; Terminal cash flow; and the NPV technique. (Capital Budgeting, Decision Process, Procedure, definition). Management accounting uses the Net Present Value (NPV) technique, which in simple terms practices an explicit comparison of the returns from a specific project with the relevant opportunity cost of capital, to appraise and manage investment decisions. NPV is an indicator of how much value an investment adds to the firm. (Net Present Value, 2009)…

    • 2063 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    References: Horngren, C.T., Sundem, G.L., Stratton, W.O., Burgstahler, D., and Schatzberg, J., (2008). Introduction to Management Accounting (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall.…

    • 851 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the two capital budgeting cases corporations (A and B) have different revenues values and expenses as well as variable depreciation expenses, tax rates and discount rates. The members of our team had to compute both corporate cases NVP, IRR, PI, Payback Period, DPP, and project a 5-year income statement and cash flow in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The future cash flows of the project and discounts them into present value amounts using a discount rate that represents the project's cost of capital and its risk is what’s needs to forecast the investment. Next, all of the asset's future positive cash flows are reduced into one current value number. Subtracting this number from the original cash expense required for the investment provides the net present value (NPV) of the investment. Using the internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value (NPV) measurements to evaluate projects often results in the same findings.…

    • 1072 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Watson, M. (2007) Management accounting and budgetary control. Public Finance Quarterly. 32(2) March. pp. 234-237 [Online] Available at: http://search.global.epnet.com [Accessed: 25 April, 2012].…

    • 5315 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Capital investment decisions could be very complex. Several capital budget techniques available to use and numerous factors to keep in mind. For example, the time value of money may be an important factor to consider when using some of the techniques to evaluate a course of action. The payback method and unadjusted…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wacc

    • 1960 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Weighted Average Cost of Capital is the weighted Average of the Marginal Costs of the Capital Components employed to acquire a long term asset (make a new real investment in things like Plant and Equipment, R&D, Human Capital, a new Product, a new Process, or a new Marketing Channel…

    • 1960 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Capital Budgeting

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages

    On this paper the reader will be able to find the rationale in the analysis of a specific capital budgeting case study. Definitions along with explanations related to capital budgeting such as Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Net Present Value (NPV) will be provided and debriefed. It is extremely relevant to mention that capital budgeting allows the companies to analyze one or more projects to decide eventually which project or piece of equipment would be most profitable or suitable (economically), according to the needs and the capacities the company has.…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Quiz 7 Cost Accounting

    • 1444 Words
    • 6 Pages

    1) Which of the following involves significant financial investments in projects to develop new products, expand production capacity, or remodel current production facilities?…

    • 1444 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays