Cashflow Analysis
Cashflow Analysis
Cashflow Analysis
Q2.
Hana Industries, Inc., needs a new lathe. It can buy a new high-speed lathe for $1 million. The
lathe will cost $35,000 per year to run, but will save the firm $125,000 in labor costs, and will be
useful for 10 years. Suppose that for tax purpose, the lathe will be depreciated on a straight-line
basis over 10 year life to a salvage value of $100,000. The actual market value of the lathe at that
time also will be $100,000. The discount rate is 8% and the corporate tax rate is 35%. What is the
NPV of buying a new lathe?
Case-study
Jack Tar, CFO of Sheetbend & Halyard, Inc., opened the company confidential envelope. It contained a
draft of a competitive bid for a contract to supply duffel canvas to the U.S. Navy. The cover memo from
Sheetbends CEO asked Mr. Tar to review the bid before it was submitted.
The bid and its supporting documents had been prepared by Sheetbends sales staff. It called for
Sheetbend to supply 100,000 years of duffel canvas per year for 5 years. The proposed selling price was
fixed at $30 per yard.
Mr. Tar was not usually involved in sales, but this bid was unusual in at least two respects. First, if accepted
by the navy, it would commit Sheetbend to a fixed-price, long-term contract. Second, producing the duffel
canvas would require an investment of $1.5 million to purchase machinery and to refurbish Sheetbends
Plant in Pleasantboro, Maine.
Mr. Tar set to work and by the end of the week had collected the following facts and assumptions:
The plant in Pleasantboro had been built in the early 1900s and is now idle. The plant was fully
depreciated on Sheetbends books, except for the purchase cost of the land (in 1947) of $10,000.
Now that the land and the idle plant could be sold, immediately or in the near future, for
$600,000.
Refurbishing the plant would cost $500,000. This investment would be depreciated for tax
purposes on the 10-year MACRS schedule.
The new machinery would cost $1 million. This investment could be depreciated on the 5-year
MACRS schedule.
The refurbishing plant and new machinery would last for many years. However, the remaining
market for duffel canvas was small, and it was not clear that additional orders could be obtained
once the navy contract was finished. The machinery was custom-built and could be used only for
duffel canvas. Its secondhand value at the end of 5-years was probably zero.
Table shows the sales staffs forecasts of income from the navy contract. Mr. Tar reviewed this
forecast and decided that its assumptions were reasonable, except that the forecast used book,
not tax, depreciation.
But the forecast income statement contained no mention of working capital. Mr. Tar thought that
working capital would average about 10% of sales.
Armed with this information, Mr. Tar constructed a spreadsheet to calculate the NPV of the duffel
canvas project, assuming that Sheetbends bid would be accepted by the navy.
He had just finished debugging the spreadsheet when another confidential envelope arrived from
Sheetbends CEO. It contained a firm offer from a Maine real estate developr to purchase Sheetbends
Pleasantboro land and plant for $1.5 million in cash.
Should Mr. Tar recommend submitting the bid to the navy at the proposed price of $30 per yard? The
discount rate for this project is 12%.
Year
Yards sold
100,000
100,000
100,000
100,000
100,000
30.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
Revenues
3000000
3000000
3000000
3000000
3000000
2100000
2184000
2271360
2362210
2456700
816000
728640
637790
543300
Depreciation
250000
250000
250000
250000
250000
Income
650000
566000
478640
387790
293300
Tax @ 35%
227500
198100
167520
135720
102650
Net income
422500
367900
311120
252070
190650
Notes:
1. Yards sold and price per yard would be fixed by contract.
2. Cost of goods includes fixed cost of $300,000 per year plus variable costs of $18 per yard. Costs
are expected to increase at the inflation rate of 4% per year.
3. Depreciation: a $1 million investment in machinery is depreciated straight-line over 5 years
($200,000 per year). The $500,000 cost of refurbishing the Pleasantboro plant is depreciated
straight-line over 10-years ($50,000 per year)