Real Options
Throughout this chapter, we have recommended the APV framework for evaluating capital
expenditures in real assets. The APV was determined by making certain assumptions
about revenues, operating costs, exchange rates, and the like. This approach treats risk
through the discount rate. When evaluated at the appropriate discount rate, a positive APV implies that a project should be accepted and a negative APV implies that it should
be rejected. A project is accepted under the assumption that all future operating decisions
will be optimal. Unfortunately, the firm’s management does not know at the inception
date of a project what future decisions it will be confronted with because all information
concerning the project has not yet been learned. Consequently, the firm’s management
has alternative paths, or options, that it can take as new information is discovered.
Options pricing theory is useful for evaluating investment opportunities in real assets as
well as financial assets, such as foreign exchange that we considered in Chapter 7. The
application of options pricing theory to the evaluation of investment options in real projects
is known as real options.
The firm is confronted with many possible real options over the life of a capital
asset. For example, the firm may have a timing option about when to make the investment;
it may have a growth option to increase the scale of the investment; it may have
a suspension option to temporarily cease production; and, it may have an abandonment
option to quit the investment early. All of these situations can be evaluated as real
options.
In international capital expenditures, the MNC is faced with the political uncertainties
of doing business in a foreign host country. For example, a stable political environment
for foreign investment may turn unfavorable if a different political party wins
power by election—or worse, by political coup. Moreover, an unexpected change in a
host country’s monetary policy may cause a depreciation in its exchange rate versus
the parent firm’s home currency, thus adversely affecting the return to the shareholders
of the parent firm. These and other political uncertainties make real options analysis
ideal for use in evaluating international capital expenditures. Real options analysis,
however, should be thought of as an extension of discounted cash flow analysis, not as
a replacement of it, as the following example makes clear