The payback method helps firms establish and identify a maximum acceptable payback period that helps in their capital budgeting decisions. Consider the case of Cold Goose Metal Works Inc.: Cold Goose Metal Works Inc. is a small firm, and several of its managers are worried about how soon the firm will be able to recover its initial investment from Project Beta's expected future cash flows. To answer this question, Cold Goose's CFO has asked that you compute the project's payback period using the following expected net cash flows and assuming that the cash flows are received evenly throughout each year. Complete the following table and compute the project's conventional payback period. For full credit, complete the entire table. (Note: Round the conventional payback period to two decimal places. If your answer is negative, be sure to use a minus sign in your answer.) Year 0 -$4,500,000 Year 1 $1,800,000 Year 2 $3,825,000 Year 3 $1,575,000 Expected cash flow Cumulative cash flow $ |$ Conventional payback period: years The conventional payback period ignores the time value of money, and this concerns Cold Goose's CFO. He has now asked you to compute Beta's discounted payback period, assuming the company has a 8% cost of capital. Complete the following table and perform any necessary calculations. Round the discounted cash flow values to the nearest whole dollar, and the discounted payback period to two decimal places. For full credit, complete the entire table. (Note: If your answer is negative, be sure to use a minus sign in your answer.) Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Cash flow $1,800,000 $3,825,000 $1,575,000 Discounted cash flow $ $ $ Cumulative discounted cash flow $ $ $ Discounted payback period: years Which version of a project's payback period should the CFO use when evaluating Project Beta, given its theoretical superiority? O The regular payback period O The discounted payback period One theoretical disadvantage of both payback methods-compared to the net present value method-is that they fail to consider the value of the cash flows beyond the point in time equal to the payback period. How much value in this example does the discounted payback period method fail to recognize due to this theoretical deficiency? O $1,250,286 $2,916,953 O $4,529,607 O $1,696,274 Year 0 -$4,500,000 The net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) methods of investment analysis are interrelated and are sometimes used together to make capital budgeting decisions. Consider the case of Blue Hamster Manufacturing Inc.: Last Tuesday, Blue Hamster Manufacturing Inc. lost a portion of its planning and financial data when both its main and its backup servers crashed. The company's CFO remembers that the internal rate of return (IRR) of Project Zeta is 13.8%, but he can't recall how much Blue Hamster originally invested in the project nor the project's net present value (NPV). However, he found a note that detailed the annual net cash flows expected to be generated by Project Zeta. They are: Year Cash Flow Year 1 $1,800,000 Year 2 $3,375,000 Year 3 $3,375,000 $3,375,000 Year 4 The CFO has asked you to compute Project Zeta's initial investment using the information currently available to you. He has offered the following suggestions and observations: A project's IRR represents the return the project would generate when its NPV is zero or the discounted value of its cash inflows equals the discounted value of its cash outflows-when the cash flows are discounted using the project's IRR. The level of risk exhibited by Project Zeta is the same as that exhibited by the company's average project, which means that Project Zeta's net cash flows can be discounted using Blue Hamster's 10% WACC. Given the data and hints, Project Zeta's initial investment is and its NPV is (rounded to the nearest whole dollar). I A project's IRR will if the project's cash inflows increase, and everything else is unaffected