Hurdle-Rates zur Beurteilung von Investitionsvorhaben

Bei der Beurteilung von Investitionsvorhaben stellt sich regelmäßig die Frage, welche Mindestrendite erzielt werden muss, um den Erwartungen der Kapitalgeber gerecht zu werden. Hierzu hat Rappaport bereits vor mehr als 30 Jahren ein Modell entwickelt, welches ermöglicht, Hurdle Rates für geplante Investments aus Kapitalmarktdaten abzuleiten. Dieses Modell wird im vorliegenden Beitrag vorgestellt und ergänzt.

Misinformation Adds to the Risks for the Economy

The damage done by misinformation needs to be contained. Companies should publish their domestic and worldwide output. This should reduce the misstatement and thus volatility of published profits. US profits are habitually overstated, and this does relatively little harm, but periods of excessive overstatement lead to the risks in credit markets being under-appreciated and markets overpriced. Overstated RoEs encourage high hurdle rates, which reduces investment. The complacency about debt and asset prices is less prevalent today than it was before the financial crisis to which it made a major contribution. But restricting debt and asset prices is more difficult when there is bad information about asset values and credit risks. Misstated profits also contribute to asset bubbles and consequently to the magnitude of cyclical swings in the economy. Modern corporate accounting has contributed to this profit volatility.

The Added Impact of Misinformation

Growth has suffered from a rise in hurdle rates, due to the change in management incentives, probably amplified by misleading publicity about the cost of equity capital, which is commonly claimed to be a multiple of the real cost. The bonus culture encourages managements to misrepresent RoEs, so in bad times companies publish abysmal rather than merely bad profits, with the result that subsequent profits are overstated. The swings from understated to overstated increase published profit volatility. After being similar for fifty years, published profits have since 2000 become four times more volatile than national account profits. Claims that low investment and high margins are due to increased monopoly are shaky. The bonus culture is a better explanation as, among other things, it also accounts for the different levels of investment by quoted and unquoted companies and for the increased volatility of published profits.

Hurdle Rate and Adverse Selection on Escalation of Commitment

This article tests the effect of hurdle rates and adverse selection on escalation of commitment. Participants consist of 135 junior managers who had passed two course of management. The result indicates that the managers with adverse selection conditions will tend not to continue unfavorable projects. This research also affirms that the managers with adverse selection conditions will be more likely not to continue projects that are not favorable under the conditions of self-set hurdle rates compared to the conditions of organization-set hurdle rates. This article may contribute to empirical evidence of a decline in comprehensive escalation of commitments. Keywords: adverse selection, self-set hurdle rates, organization-set hurdle rates, escalation of commitment

Teletech Corporation, 1996

In January 1996, the chief financial officer must fashion a response to a raider who claims that a major business segment of the company should be sold because it is not earning a satisfactory rate of return (ROR). The case recounts the debate within the company over the use of a single hurdle rate to evaluate all segments of the company versus a risk-adjusted hurdle rate system. The students’ tasks are to resolve the debate, estimate weighted-average costs of capital (WACC) for the two business segments, and respond to the raider. Because the case was prepared to serve as part of an introduction to estimating investors’ required rates of return, it would best follow one or two class sessions introducing techniques for estimating WACC. Although the numerical calculations required are light, some of the subtleties about the use of risk-adjusted hurdle rates will require time for the novice to absorb. The case can be used to pursue a variety of teaching objectives, including (1) extending risk return (i.e., mean variance) analysis to corporate finance; (2) surveying classic arguments for and against the use of risk-adjusted hurdle rate systems; (3) assessing the assumptions and limitations of risk-adjusted hurdle rate systems; (4) exercising the estimation of segment WACCs; and (5) considering possible organizational barriers to the implementation of risk-adjusted hurdle rates.