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Investment appraisal techniques are methodologies through which profitability prospects of any
future investments is evaluated and compared with other available options. Variety of techniques
are in available in practice and theory. These techniques are classified under two main heads i.e.
traditional methods such like payback period and cash flow methods such like Net Present Value
(NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) (Akinbuli, 2011). There has been a long debate on
which investment appraisal technique is more effective and which is widely being practiced
among the professionals. Most of the evidence favor usage of discounted cash flow techniques
(Klammer, 1970; Bailes Nielsen and Lawton, 1988; Farragher, Kleiman, and Sahu, 1999) while
some studies indicate usage of the traditional methods as well (Falusi, 1983; Cotton and
Schinski, 1999; Pandey, 2002) and there has been evidence that usage of discounted cash flow
techniques is increasing among professionals (Gitman and Forrester, 1977; Akinbuli, 2011;
Farragher, Kleiman, and Sahu, 1999). While IRR was found to be the technique of primary
evaluation in many studies of developed countries while in developing countries like Nigeria still
use payback period widely (Kantudu, 2007). Following discussion would highlight the merits
and demerits of these widely used appraisal techniques:
Payback Period
Payback period is the length of time till that all invested money could be recovered from the
project (Dury, 2002). The rule of thumb is to select the project having least of payback period
(Akinbuli, 2011). This is a pretty simple and straight forward investment appraisal technique
(Kantudu, 2007). The real problem with this problem is that it do not considers the time value of
money. This problem is adjusted in latter version of this techniques i.e. discounted payback
period in which the discounted value of the cash flows is considered to calculate payback period.
Still this technique do not focus on the profitability of the project it just entails how much time it
would take to recover investment money from the project (Gitman, 2007). This technique also
ignores timing of each cash flow within certain payback period. There are other problems with
this method such like this techniques is not use in comparing projects having equal payback
periods and use of this technique only may lead the organization to excessively invest in the
projects with short term horizons (Van-Horne, 2002). This technique however could be used as
initial screening technique and in situations when recovery of the investment money is important
at an early or specified date. Relying on this method could ensure the good liquidity position and
lesser risk prospects as short term projects are less risky (ICA).
Conclusion
On the whole, different methods of investment appraisal are being used in different parts of the
world depending upon suitability of the method and practice. It is suggested that no single
method of investment appraisal is perfect regarding analysis and all methods have certain
limitations. So combination of the available methods could be used to make rational decision
depending upon the situations. It is however, useful to understand the applications and
limitations of different methods so that suitable methods could be chosen for investment
decisions.
References
Akinbuli, S. F. (2011). Evaluation of the Application of Capital Investment Appraisal Techniques
by Corporate Organizations in Nigeria, Middle Eastern Finance and Economics, Issue 13, 103116.
Bailes, J.C., Nielsen, J.F. and Lawton, S. (1998). How Forest Products Companies Analyze
Capital Budgets, Management Accounting, 80(4), 24-30.
Cotton W.D.J., and Schinski, M. (1999). Justifying Capital Expenditures in New Technology: A
Survey, Engineering Economist, 44(4), pp.362.
Dury, C. (2002). Management Accounting, 5th edition, Thomson Learning, London.
Falusi, J. M. (1983), Capital Budgeting Techniques in Practice, Management Accounting
Journal, May edition, 19-25.
Farragher, E.J., Kleiman, R.T. and Sahu, A.P. (1999). Current Capital Budgeting Practices,
Engineering Economist, 44(2), pp.137.
Gitman, L. J. (2007). Principles of Managerial Finance, 11th edition, Pearson Education, India.
Gitman, L.J., and Forrester, J.R. (1977). A Survey of Capital Budgeting Techniques Used by
Major U.S. Firms, Financial Management, 6(Fall), 66-71.
ICA, Management Information, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Kantudu, A. S., (2007). Capital Investment Appraisal Practices of Quoted Firms in Nigeria.
Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1000075