Overview and Conclusions
This study, using the conducted survey, brought to the surface some of the problems that small and medium sized companies in Cyprus encounter while implementing their investment policy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the capital budgeting techniques used by small and medium firms in Cyprus deviated—or did not—from the theoretical framework of investment decision making in order to be able to offer suggestions for improvement. The investigation was conducted through the design and distribution of a questionnaire sent to selected sample of companies. Our sample firms can be characterized as small and medium-sized companies by internationally accepted criteria.
The results of the survey show that the investigated companies use capital budgeting techniques mostly for evaluating projects intended to replace old equipment (57.56 percent). The most preferred technique by practitioners was the payback period (36.71 percent) and not the NPV recommended by the academicians. A significant percentage of the firms 18.99 percent do not use any formal capital budgeting technique for their investment evaluation. Total statistical risk analysis is being adopted by 31.67 percent of the firms.
The survey with respect to the cost of capital, an important element in the use of the capital budgeting techniques, shows that is determined basically according to the cost of borrowing (30.95 percent), while 3.57 percent of the companies believe that determining the cost of capital does not affect their profits. The use of cost of borrowing as cost of capital (hurdle rate) is a mistake on the part of managers who are responsible for the evaluation of the investments projects. The use of borrowing as the sole source of finance of a project of course will lead to the lowering of the cost of capital (hurdle rate) and ceteris paribus to the increase profitability of the investment project.
But this gain will be short lived because the increase in borrowing will increase the debt ratio, which in turn will increase the expected rate of return demanded by equity holds and the borrowing rate, too. As a result the cost of capital (the hurdle rate) will increase, and the investment activity of the company,certeris paribus will decrease.
In conclusion, small and medium-size enterprises in Cyprus, for the most part, do not follow scientific evaluation techniques for their investment projects probably due to lack of familiarity with such methods.
These findings indicate the need for training and educating the managers of the firms in the capital budgeting area of financial management.