Measuring Investment Returns

1. Measuring Investment Returns Aswath Damodaran Stern School of Business

2. First Principles • Invest in projects that yield a return greater than the minimum acceptable hurdle rate. • The hurdle rate should be higher for riskier projects and reflect the financing mix used - owners’ funds (equity) or borrowed money (debt) • Returns on projects should be measured based on cash flows generated and the timing of these cash flows; they should also consider both positive and negative side effects of these projects. • Choose a financing mix that minimizes the hurdle rate and matches the assets being financed. • If there are not enough investments that earn the hurdle rate, return the cash to stockholders. • The form of returns - dividends and stock buybacks - will depend upon the stockholders’ characteristics.

3. Measuring Returns Right: The Basic Principles • Use cash flows rather than earnings. You cannot spend earnings. • Use “incremental” cash flows relating to the investment decision, i.e., cashflows that occur as a consequence of the decision, rather than total cash flows. • Use “time weighted” returns, i.e., value cash flows that occur earlier more than cash flows that occur later. The Return Mantra: “Time-weighted, Incremental Cash Flow Return”

4. Steps in Investment Analysis • Estimate a hurdle rate for the project, based upon the riskiness of the investment • Estimate revenues and accounting earnings on the investment. • Measure the accounting return to see if the investment measures up to the hurdle rate. • Convert accounting earnings into cash flows • Use the cash flows to evaluate whether the investment is a good investment. • Time weight the cash flows • Use the time-weighted cash flows to evaluate whether the investment is a good investment.

5. I. Estimating the Hurdle Rate for an Investment • If a firm is in only one business, and all of its investments are homogeneous: • Use the company’s costs of equity and capital to evaluate its investments. • If the firm is in more than one business, but investments within each of business are similar: • Use the divisional costs of equity and capital to evaluate investments made by that division • If a firm is planning on entering a new business: • Estimate a cost of equity for the investment, based upon the riskiness of the investment • Estimate a cost of debt and debt ratio for the investment based upon the costs of debt and debt ratios of other firms in the business

6. Analyzing Project Risk: Three Examples • The Home Depot: A New Store • The Home Depot is a firm in a single business, with homogeneous investments (another store). • We will use The Home Depot’s cost of equity (9.78%) and capital (9.51%) to analyze this investment. • Boeing: A Super Jumbo Jet (capable of carrying 400+ people) • We will use the cost of capital of 9.32% that we estimated for the aerospace division of Boeing. • InfoSoft: An Online Software Store • We will estimate the cost of equity based upon the beta for online retailers (1.725) and InfoSoft’s debt ratio. We will use a much higher cost of debt for the project (7%) than InfoSoft’s existing debt (6%) • Cost of capital = 14.49% (.9338) + 7% (1-.42)(.0662) = 13.80%

7. II. The Estimation Process • Experience and History: If a firm has invested in similar projects in the past, it can use this experience to estimate revenues and earnings on the project being analyzed. • Market Testing: If the investment is in a new market or business, you can use market testing to get a sense of the size of the market and potential profitability. • Scenario Analysis: If the investment can be affected be a few external factors, the revenues and earnings can be analyzed across a series of scenarios and the expected values used in the analysis.

8. The Home Depot’s New Store: Experience and History • The Home Depot has 700+ stores in existence, at difference stages in their life cycles, yielding valuable information on how much revenue can be expected at each store and expected margins. • At the end of 1999, for instance, each existing store had revenues of $ 44 million, with revenues starting at about $ 40 million in the first year of a store’s life, climbing until year 5 and then declining until year 10.

9. The Margins at Existing Store

10. Projections for The Home Depot’s New Store • For revenues, we will assume • that the new store being considered by the Home Depot will have expected revenues of $ 40 million in year 1 (which is the approximately the average revenue per store at existing stores after one year in operation) • that these revenues to grow 5% a year • that our analysis will cover 10 years (since revenues start dropping at existing stores after the 10th year). • For operating margins, we will assume • The operating expenses of the new store will be 90% of the revenues (based upon the median for existing stores)

11. Scenario Analysis: Boeing Super Jumbo • We consider two factors: • Actions of Airbus (the competition): Produces new large capacity plane to match Boeing’s new jet, Improves its existing large capacity plane (A-300) or abandons this market entirely. • Much of the growth from this market will come from whether Asia. We look at a high growth, average growth and low growth scenario. • In each scenario, • We estimate the number of planes that Boeing will sell under each scenario. • We estimate the probability of each scenario.

12. Scenario Analysis • The following table lists the number of planes that Boeing will sell under each scenario, with the probabilities listed below each number. Airbus New Airbus A-300 Airbus abandons large plane large airplane High Growth in Asia 120 150 200 (0.125) (0.125) (0.00) Average Growth in Asia 100 135 160 (0.15) (0.25) (0.10) Low Growth in Asia 75 110 120 (0.05) (0.10) (0.10) Expected Value = 120*0.125+150*.125+200*0+100*.15+135*.25 +160*.10+ 75*.05+110*.10+120*10 = 125 planes

13. III. Measures of return: Accounting Earnings • Principles Governing Accounting Earnings Measurement • Accrual Accounting: Show revenues when products and services are sold or provided, not when they are paid for. Show expenses associated with these revenues rather than cash expenses. • Operating versus Capital Expenditures: Only expenses associated with creating revenues in the current period should be treated as operating expenses. Expenses that create benefits over several periods are written off over multiple periods (as depreciation or amortization)

14. From Forecasts to Accounting Earnings • Separate projected expenses into operating and capital expenses: Operating expenses, in accounting, are expenses designed to generate benefits only in the current period, while capital expenses generate benefits over multiple periods. • Depreciate or amortize the capital expenses over time: Once expenses have been categorized as capital expenses, they have to be depreciated or amortized over time. • Allocate fixed expenses that cannot be traced to specific projects: Expenses that are not directly traceable to a project get allocated to projects, based upon a measure such as revenues generated by the project; projects that are expected to make more revenues will have proportionately more of the expense allocated to them. • Consider the tax effect: Consider the tax liability that would be created by the operating income we have estimated

15. Boeing Super Jumbo Jet: Investment Assumptions • Boeing has already spent $ 2.5 billion in research expenditures, developing the Super Jumbo. (These expenses have been capitalized) • If Boeing decides to proceed with the commercial introduction of the new plane, the firm will have to spend an additional $ 5.5 billion building a new plant and equipping it for production. Year Investment Needed Now $ 500 million 1 $ 1,000 million 2 $ 1,500 million 3 $ 1,500 million 4 $ 1,000 million • After year 4, there will be a capital maintenance expenditure required of $ 250 million each year from years 5 through 15.

16. Operating Assumptions • The sale and delivery of the planes is expected to begin in the fifth year, when 50 planes will be sold. For the next 15 years (from year 6-20), Boeing expects to sell 125 planes a year. In the last five years of the project (from year 21-25), the sales are expected to decline to 100 planes a year. While the planes delivered in year 5 will be priced at $ 200 million each, this price is expected to grow at the same rate as inflation (which is assumed to be 3%) each year after that. • Based upon past experience, Boeing anticipates that its cost of production, not including depreciation or General, Sales and Administrative (GS&A) expenses, will be 90% of the revenue each year. • Boeing allocates general, selling and administrative expenses (G,S & A) to projects based upon projected revenues, and this project will be assessed a charge equal to 4% of revenues. (One-third of these expenses will be a direct result of this project and can be treated as variable. The remaining two-thirds are fixed expenses that would be generated even if this project were not accepted.)

17. Other Assumptions • The project is expected to have a useful life of 25 years. • The corporate tax rate is 35%. • Boeing uses a variant of double-declining balance depreciation to estimate the depreciation each year. Based upon a typical depreciable life of 20 years, the depreciation is computed to be 10% of the book value of the assets (other than working capital) at the end of the previous year. We begin depreciating the capital investment immediately, rather than waiting for the revenues to commence in year 5.

18. Revenues: By Year

19. Operating Expenses & S,G & A: By Year

20. Depreciation and Amortization: By Year

21. Earnings on Project

22. And the Accounting View of Return

23. Would lead use to conclude that... • Invest in the Super Jumbo Jet The return on capital of 12.75% is greater than the cost of capital for aerospace of 9.32%; This would suggest that the project should not be taken.

24. From Project to Firm Return on Capital • Just as a comparison of project return on capital to the cost of capital yields a measure of whether the project is acceptable, a comparison can be made at the firm level, to judge whether the existing projects of the firm are adding or destroying value. Boeing Home Depot InfoSoft Return on Capital 5.82% 16.37% 23.67% Cost of Capital 9.17% 9.51% 12.55% ROC - Cost of Capital -3.35% 6.87% 11.13%

25. 6 Application Test: Assessing Investment Quality • For the most recent period for which you have data, compute the after-tax return on capital earned by your firm, where after-tax return on capital is computed to be After-tax ROC = EBIT (1-tax rate)/ (BV of debt + BV of Equity)previous year • For the most recent period for which you have data, compute the return spread earned by your firm: Return Spread = After-tax ROC - Cost of Capital • For the most recent period, compute the EVA earned by your firm EVA = Return Spread * (BV of Debt +BV of Equity)

26. IV. From Earnings to Cash Flows • To get from accounting earnings to cash flows: • you have to add back non-cash expenses (like depreciation and amortization) • you have to subtract out cash outflows which are not expensed (such as capital expenditures) • you have to make accrual revenues and expenses into cash revenues and expenses (by considering changes in working capital). • For the Boeing Super Jumbo, we will assume that • The depreciation used for operating expense purposes is also the tax depreciation. • Working capital will be 10% of revenues, and the investment has to be made at the beginning of each year.

27. Estimating Cash Flows: The Boeing Super Jumbo

28. The Depreciation Tax Benefit • While depreciation reduces taxable income and taxes, it does not reduce the cash flows. • The benefit of depreciation is therefore the tax benefit. In general, the tax benefit from depreciation can be written as: Tax Benefit = Depreciation * Tax Rate • For example, in year 2, the tax benefit from depreciation to Boeing from this project can be written as: Tax Benefit in year 2 = $ 217 million (.35) = $ 76 million • Proposition 1: The tax benefit from depreciation and other non-cash charges is greater, the higher your tax rate. • Proposition 2: Non-cash charges that are not tax deductible (such as amortization of goodwill) and thus provide no tax benefits have no effect on cash flows.

29. Depreciation Methods • Broadly categorizing, depreciation methods can be classified as straight line or accelerated methods. In straight line depreciation, the capital expense is spread evenly over time, In accelerated depreciation, the capital expense is depreciated more in earlier years and less in later years. Assume that you made a large investment this year, and that you are choosing between straight line and accelerated depreciation methods. Which will result in higher net income this year? • Straight Line Depreciation • Accelerated Depreciation Which will result in higher cash flows this year? • Straight Line Depreciation • Accelerated Depreciation

30. The Capital Expenditures Effect • Capital expenditures are not treated as accounting expenses but they do cause cash outflows. • Capital expenditures can generally be categorized into two groups • New (or Growth) capital expenditures are capital expenditures designed to create new assets and future growth • Maintenance capital expenditures refer to capital expenditures designed to keep existing assets. • Both initial and maintenance capital expenditures reduce cash flows • The need for maintenance capital expenditures will increase with the life of the project. In other words, a 25-year project will require more maintenance capital expenditures than a 2-year asset.

31. To cap ex or not to cap ex • Assume that you run your own software business, and that you have an expense this year of $ 100 million from producing and distribution promotional CDs in software magazines. Your accountant tells you that you can expense this item or capitalize and depreciate. Which will have a more positive effect on income? • Expense it • Capitalize and Depreciate it Which will have a more positive effect on cash flows? • Expense it • Capitalize and Depreciate it

32. The Working Capital Effect • Intuitively, money invested in inventory or in accounts receivable cannot be used elsewhere. It, thus, represents a drain on cash flows • To the degree that some of these investments can be financed using suppliers credit (accounts payable) the cash flow drain is reduced. • Investments in working capital are thus cash outflows • Any increase in working capital reduces cash flows in that year • Any decrease in working capital increases cash flows in that year • To provide closure, working capital investments need to be salvaged at the end of the project life.

33. V. From Cash Flows to Incremental Cash Flows • The incremental cash flows of a project are the difference between the cash flows that the firm would have had, if it accepts the investment, and the cash flows that the firm would have had, if it does not accept the investment. • The Key Questions to determine whether a cash flow is incremental: • What will happen to this cash flow item if I accept the investment? • What will happen to this cash flow item if I do not accept the investment? • If the cash flow will occur whether you take this investment or reject it, it is not an incremental cash flow.

34. Sunk Costs • Any expenditure that has already been incurred, and cannot be recovered (even if a project is rejected) is called a sunk cost • When analyzing a project, sunk costs should not be considered since they are incremental • By this definition, market testing expenses and R&D expenses are both likely to be sunk costs before the projects that are based upon them are analyzed. If sunk costs are not considered in project analysis, how can a firm ensure that these costs are covered?

35. Allocated Costs • Firms allocate costs to individual projects from a centralized pool (such as general and administrative expenses) based upon some characteristic of the project (sales is a common choice) • For large firms, these allocated costs can result in the rejection of projects • To the degree that these costs are not incremental (and would exist anyway), this makes the firm worse off. • Thus, it is only the incremental component of allocated costs that should show up in project analysis. • How, looking at these pooled expenses, do we know how much of the costs are fixed and how much are variable?

36. Boeing: Super Jumbo Jet • The $2.5 billion already expended on the jet is a sunk cost, as is the amortization related that expense. (Boeing has spent the first, and it is entitled to the latter even if the investment is rejected) • Two-thirds of the S,G&A expenses are fixed expenses and would exist even if this project is not accepted.

37. The Incremental Cash Flows: Boeing Super Jumbo

38. VI. To Time-Weighted Cash Flows • Incremental cash flows in the earlier years are worth more than incremental cash flows in later years. • In fact, cash flows across time cannot be added up. They have to be brought to the same point in time before aggregation. • This process of moving cash flows through time is • discounting, when future cash flows are brought to the present • compounding, when present cash flows are taken to the future • The discount rate is the mechanism that determines how cash flows across time will be weighted.

39. Present Value Mechanics Cash Flow Type Discounting Formula Compounding Formula 1. Simple CF CFn / (1+r)n CF0 (1+r)n 2. Annuity 3. Growing Annuity 4. Perpetuity A/r 5. Growing Perpetuity A(1+g)/(r-g)

40. Discounted cash flow measures of return • Net Present Value (NPV): The net present value is the sum of the present values of all cash flows from the project (including initial investment). NPV = Sum of the present values of all cash flows on the project, including the initial investment, with the cash flows being discounted at the appropriate hurdle rate (cost of capital, if cash flow is cash flow to the firm, and cost of equity, if cash flow is to equity investors) • Decision Rule: Accept if NPV > 0 • Internal Rate of Return (IRR): The internal rate of return is the discount rate that sets the net present value equal to zero. It is the percentage rate of return, based upon incremental time-weighted cash flows. • Decision Rule: Accept if IRR > hurdle rate

41. Closure on Cash Flows • In a project with a finite and short life, you would need to compute a salvage value, which is the expected proceeds from selling all of the investment in the project at the end of the project life. It is usually set equal to book value of fixed assets and working capital • In a project with an infinite or very long life, we compute cash flows for a reasonable period, and then compute a terminal value for this project, which is the present value of all cash flows that occur after the estimation period ends..

42. Salvage Value on Boeing Super Jumbo • We will assume that the salvage value for this investment at the end of year 25 will be the book value of the investment. Book value of capital investments at end of year 25 = $1,104 million Book value of working capital investments: yr 25 = $3,612 million Salvage Value at end of year 25 = $4,716 million

43. Considering all of the Cashflows… The NPV

44. Which makes the argument that.. • The project should be accepted. The positive net present value suggests that the project will add value to the firm, and earn a return in excess of the cost of capital. • By taking the project, Boeing will increase its value as a firm by $4,019 million.

45. The IRR of this project Internal Rate of Return

46. The IRR suggests.. • The project is a good one. Using time-weighted, incremental cash flows, this project provides a return of 14.88%. This is greater than the cost of capital of 9.32%. • The IRR and the NPV will yield similar results most of the time, though there are differences between the two approaches that may cause project rankings to vary depending upon the approach used.

47. Case 1: IRR versus NPV • Consider a project with the following cash flows: Year Cash Flow 0 -1000 1 800 2 1000 3 1300 4 -2200

48. Project’s NPV Profile

49. What do we do now? • This project has two internal rates of return. The first is 6.60%, whereas the second is 36.55%. • Why are there two internal rates of return on this project? • If your cost of capital is 12.32%, would you accept or reject this project? • I would reject the project • I would accept this project Explain.

50. Case 2: NPV versus IRR Project A $ 350,000 $ 450,000 $ 600,000 Cash Flow $ 750,000 Investment $ 1,000,000 NPV = $467,937 IRR= 33.66% Project B $ 5,500,000 Cash Flow $ 4,500,000 $ 3,000,000 $ 3,500,000 Investment $ 10,000,000 NPV = $1,358,664 IRR=20.88%