Assignment 1: Capital Rationing

Assignment 1: Capital Rationing

The availability of funds effects the capital budgeting decisions.  The amount of funds available for capital expenditures will be either limited or unlimited.  Funds would be considered unlimited when a firm is willing to acquire, through borrowing or equity, any amount of capital as long as the return on the investment is higher than the cost of the funds.  When the funds that a firm will make available for capital investment are limited, and the firm has more opportunities for profitable investments than the limited funds can cover, the condition is described as capital rationing.

Your assignment is to focus on the following:

• Describe how capital-budgeting decision criteria would be different in a capital-rationing situation than in a situation in which capital rationing was not necessary, and explain the reasons for the difference in criteria.  
• Describe the discounted-cash flow technique or techniques you would recommend in a capital-rationing situation and explain your reasons for your recommendation.

Write your response as a one-page memo.  Post your memo in the discussion forum and solicit feedback from your classmates.

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Assignment 2: Estimating Cash Flows

Assume that your company is considering the replacement of an automated milling machine with one of the new machines offered by three different manufacturers.  Each of the three machines under consideration is expected to have an economic life of five years and will result in greater daily production capacity and therefore increased sales volume. The increased volume will require an increase in working capital during the first year to a level that will remain constant until the end of the five years.  The decision of which specific machine to select will depend on a net present value analysis.  The old machine has reached the end of its estimated useful life and can be sold at the salvage value that was projected when the machine was first installed.

Listed below are factors that may be essential for inclusion when estimating project cash flows.  The factors may be required to correctly calculate either the initial investment, the operating cash flows, or the terminal value that would be analyzed to determine the net present value of the project.   It is also possible that certain factors could be used in more than one of the three categories of cash flow.  Another possibility is that the factor listed is not relevant to cash flow estimation for this specific scenario.

Your task is to identify whether the factor would be included in the calculation for the initial investment, or the operating cash flow, or the terminal value, or is not relevant to this decision.  You must also explain whether failure to appropriately include the factor in the calculation would result in overstating or understating the net present value of the project.

FACTORSPurchase price of capital assetIncremental annual depreciation expenseTotal company sales revenue     Cash realized from sale of the old machine at its estimated salvage value    Interest on the loan used to finance the asset purchaseTotal annual depreciation expense          Increase in working capitalDecrease in working capitalTotal net income before tax Incremental net income before taxMarginal income tax rateInvestment tax creditCost of shipping and installing the new equipment

Directions and Grading Criteria

To complete this assignment, you are to develop a Powerpoint presentation.  You should create  1-3 slides that identify the factors used to  determine the initial investment,  2-5 slides that identify the factors used to  determine the operating cash flow estimates, and  1-3 slides that identify the factors used to   determine the terminal value estimate.  You must also indicate on the slides whether failure to appropriately include the factor in the calculation would result in overstating or understating the net present value of the project.  Additional explanations or comments should appear in the speaker notes for each slide.  APA standards for writing style must be applied to the speaker notes.  Factors that are not relevant to the NPV calculation should not be included on any slide.