Capital Budgeting

INTRODUCTION

Capital Budgeting is the process of analysing a company's investment decisions such as investing in new equipment’s, machineries, plants, projects and products. This process involves the estimation of the expected cash flows, the calculation of the Net Present Value (NPV) and the calculation of the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of the investment. Net Present Value is defined as the present value of all cash inflows minus the present value of all cash outflows. If NPV is positive, the investment is making money and is thus viable. Internal Rate of Return is defined as the discount rate that makes the Net Present Value zero. If the IRR is greater than the opportunity cost of capital then the investment is feasible. The greater the value the IRR, the more feasible and investment is.

There are two hurdles in this analysing process. One involves the correct estimation of the expected cash flow. The other is the use of a correct discount rate (also known as the Project Cost of Capital). In some cases, it is possible to simply use the Company' Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) as the Project Cost of Capital. This is especially the case if the project has similar cost structure as the company. In other cases, a separate estimation or assumption of the Project Cost of Capital is required.

This Capital Budgeting spread sheet aims to assist investors, managers or analysts in correctly estimating the cash flow in different scenarios and accurately calculating the Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return. It also allows different investment projects cash flow to be compared and the forecasting of base case, worst case and best case scenario.

1.1What is Budget?

A budget is a document that translates plans into money - money that will need to be spent to get your planned activities done (expenditure) and money that will need to be generated to cover the costs of getting the work done (income). It is an estimate, or informed guess, about what you...