Discuss the necessity of risk adjusted hurdle rates for companies with diverse lines of business.
- Every company invests in new projects based on the expectation of earnings profits. Every investor or lender gives money to a company on the expectation of earning their minimum rate of return. Hurdle rate means the minimum rate of return expected by a company from its capital expenditure projects. Only if the rate of return exceeds the hurdle rate, only then the company should accept the project. As the company can pay back the hurdle rate to the investors and lenders and keep some money for future expansion of projects. This is the rate investors and lenders expect the company to pay to them.
- Every project may have its own risk and return. Risk will depend upon the variability of the returns. Higher the risk, higher the hurdle rate. There may be some projects such as developing a new product which may be highly risky, as whole money spend on research and development would go waste if the product is not introduced in the market. However, for real estate companies the risk is not very high. If the building are made properly, people will buy the apartments. For eg - healthcare industry has a high hurdle rate due to the inherent high risk of developing vaccines and drugs. For eg - real estate companies have low hurdle rate due to low risk.
- If the company has one consolidated hurdle rate for its diverse line of businesses, then it may not be able to identify projects which are doing well. High returns generated in one industry might offset the low returns generated by another industry. Proper evaluation of the performance of various line of businesses will be difficult.