Average Internal Rate of Return and investment decisions: A new perspective

The internal rate of return (IRR) is often used by managers and practitioners for investment decisions. Unfortunately, it has serious flaws: (i) multiple real-valued IRRs may arise, (ii) complex-valued IRRs may arise, (iii) the IRR is, in general, incompatible with the net present value (NPV) in accept/reject decisions (iv) the IRR ranking is, in general, different from the NPV ranking, (v) the IRR criterion is not applicable with variable costs of capital. The efforts of economists and management scientists in providing a reliable project rate of return have generated over the decades an immense bulk of contributions aiming to solve these shortcomings. This paper offers a complete solution to this long-standing issue by changing the usual perspective: the IRR equation is dismissed and the evaluator is allowed to describe the project as an investment or a borrowing at his discretion. This permits to show that any arithmetic mean of the one-period return rates implicit in a project reliably informs about a project’s profitability and correctly ranks competing projects. With such a measure, which we name ”Average Internal Rate of Return”, complex-valued numbers disappear and all the above mentioned problems are wiped out. The economic meaning is compelling: it is the project return rate implicitly determined by the market. The traditional IRR notion may be found back as a particular case

Multistage Capital Budgeting With Delayed Consumption of Slack

Capital budgeting frequently involves multiple stages at which firms can continue or abandon ongoing projects. In this paper, we study a project requiring two stages of investment. Failure to fund Stage 1 of the investment precludes investment in Stage 2, whereas failure to fund Stage 2 results in early termination. In contrast to the existing literature, we assume that the firm can limit the manager\u27s informational rents with the early termination of the project. In this setting, we find that the firm optimally commits to a capital allocation scheme whereby it forgoes positive net present value (NPV) projects at Stage 1 (capital rationing), whereas at Stage 2, depending on the manager\u27s previous report, it sometimes implements projects with a negative continuation NPV but in other situations forgoes implementing projects with positive continuation NPVs

Accounting Measures and Economic Measures: An Integrated Theory of Capital Budgeting

Accounting measures are traditionally matched against economic measures. For example, accounting rates of return (ARR) are usually considered poor surrogates of the “economic rate of return” and the residual income is sometimes criticized as being periodically inconsistent with the net present value (NPV). This paper shows that the opposition accounting/economic is artificial and, taking a capital budgeting perspective, illustrates the strict links between economic measures and accounting measures. In particular, the ARR is shown to be a correct economic yield of a project and the traditional IRR is only a particular case of it. Also, maximization of the simple arithmetic mean of properly modified residual incomes is equivalent to NPV maximization, owing to its periodic consistency in the sense of Egginton (1995). The conciliation of such notions as NPV, IRR, ARR, and residual income stems from (i) the fundamental law of motion of any economic entity, (ii) the notion of Chisini mean, (iii) a modified notion of residual income which takes account of a comprehensive cost of capital

In Search of the 'Lost Capital'. A Theory for Valuation, Investment Decisions, Performance Measurement

This paper presents a theoretical framework for valuation, investment decisions, and performance measurement based on a nonstandard theory of residual income. It is derived from the notion of “unrecovered” capital, which is here named “lost” capital because it represents the capital foregone by the investors. Its theoretical strength and meaningfulness is shown by deriving it from four main perspectives: financial, microeconomic, axiomatic, accounting. Implications for asset valuation, capital budgeting and performance measurement are investigated. In particular: an aggregation property is shown, which makes the simple average residual income play a major role in valuation; a dual relation between the standard theory and the lost-capital theory is proved, clarifying the way periodic performance is computed in the two paradigms and the rationale for measuring performance with either paradigm; the average accounting rate of return is shown to be more reliable than the internal rate of return as a capital budgeting criterion, and maximization of the average residual income is shown to be equivalent to maximization of Net Present Value (NPV). Two metrics are also presented: one enjoys the nice property of robust goal congruence irrespective of the sign of the cash flows; the other one enjoys periodic consistency in the sense of Egginton (1995). The results obtained suggest that this theory might prove useful for real-life applications in firm valuation, capital budgeting decisions, ex post performance measurement, incentive compensation

In search of the "lost capital". A theory for valuation, investment decisions, performance measurement

This paper presents a theoretical framework for valuation, investment decisions, and performance measurement based on a nonstandard theory of residual income. It is derived from the notion of "unrecovered" capital, which is here named "lost" capital because it represents the capital foregone by the investors. Its theoretical strength and meaningfulness is shown by deriving it from four main perspectives: financial, microeconomic, axiomatic, accounting. Implications for asset valuation, capital budgeting and performance measurement are investigated. In particular: an aggregation property is shown, which makes the simple average residual income play a major role in valuation; a dual relation between the standard theory and the lost-capital theory is proved, clarifying the way periodic performance is computed in the two paradigms and the rationale for measuring performance with either paradigm; the average accounting rate of return is shown to be more reliable than the internal rate of return as a capital budgeting criterion, and maximization of the average residual income is shown to be equivalent to maximization of Net Present Value (NPV). Two metrics are also presented: one enjoys the nice property of robust goal congruence irrespective of the sign of the cash flows; the other one enjoys periodic consistency in the sense of Egginton (1995). The results obtained suggest that this theory might prove useful for real-life applications in firm valuation, capital budgeting decision-making, ex ante and ex post performance measurement, incentive compensation. A numerical example illustrates the implementation of the paradigm to the EVA model and the Edwards-Bell-Ohlson model

In search of the "lost capital". A theory for valuation, investment decisions, performance measurement

This paper presents a theoretical framework for valuation, investment decisions, and performance measurement based on a nonstandard theory of residual income. It is derived from the notion of "unrecovered" capital, which is here named "lost" capital because it represents the capital foregone by the investors. Its theoretical strength and meaningfulness is shown by deriving it from four main perspectives: financial, microeconomic, axiomatic, accounting. Implications for asset valuation, capital budgeting and performance measurement are investigated. In particular: an aggregation property is shown, which makes the simple average residual income play a major role in valuation; a dual relation between the standard theory and the lost-capital theory is proved, clarifying the way periodic performance is computed in the two paradigms and the rationale for measuring performance with either paradigm; the average accounting rate of return is shown to be more reliable than the internal rate of return as a capital budgeting criterion, and maximization of the average residual income is shown to be equivalent to maximization of Net Present Value (NPV). Two metrics are also presented: one enjoys the nice property of robust goal congruence irrespective of the sign of the cash flows; the other one enjoys periodic consistency in the sense of Egginton (1995). The results obtained suggest that this theory might prove useful for real-life applications in firm valuation, capital budgeting decision-making, ex ante and ex post performance measurement, incentive compensation. A numerical example illustrates the implementation of the paradigm to the EVA model and the Edwards-Bell-Ohlson model

EVA momentum as a performance measure in the United States lodging industry

Numerous measures and metrics are used to evaluate lodging unit and company performance, but no single measure has been identified that captures the financial performance of a lodging firm. EVA Momentum emerged in 2009 as the newest economic value added (EVA)-related business performance measure. The objective of this study was to understand the value of EVA Momentum as a performance measure in the U.S. lodging industry by: (a) comparing EVA Momentum in similar and dissimilar industries, (b) determining if EVA Momentum was related to future value, and (c) understanding if EVA Momentum was more highly related to future performance than were traditional financial performance measures. Compustat and evaDimensions financial data from 2001-2008 for U.S.-based hotel, restaurant, and REIT companies were used in this study. T-test results showed no statistically significant difference between lodging and restaurant EVA Momentum. ANOVA test results found lodging EVA Momentum was higher than for fixed asset-intensive REITs, but the results were not statistically significant. Regression results showed EVA Momentum was not related to future financial performance as measured by market capitalization or total capitalization. Regression results also showed EVA Momentum was more highly related to future performance than were return on assets, return on sales, and earnings per share for the pooled sample, but not for the individual lodging, restaurant, and REIT samples. This is the first known empirical study of EVA Momentum as a performance measure. The results of the study provided support for using EVA Momentum to compare company performance across different industries, but did not find that EVA Momentum was related to future financial performance. Using a pooled sample, EVA Momentum was shown to be more highly related to future financial performance than were three traditional financial measures