Finance Decisions and Projected Cash Flows
The Finance Decisions screen involves 8 decision entries and, just as importantly, provides projections of
cash inflows and outflows for the upcoming year, along with projections of the company’s year-end
financial situation. Going into Year 11, your company has a B+ credit rating and a reasonably strong
balance sheet. At the end of Year 10, the company had a debt-assets ratio under 40% and was in good
position to cover its interest and principal payments on loans outstanding to the International Bank of
Commerce (IBC), with which the company does all of its banking, financing, and foreign exchange
transactions.
Interest Rates. Officials at IBC, under terms of IBC’s long-term banking agreement with the company,
have agreed to lend the company additional monies should you elect to use debt to help finance growth.
The interest rate on such loans is tied to the company’s credit rating and the going rates of interest in world
financial markets. Just as interest rates in real-world financial markets change intermittently and unpredictably,
there is no way to predict in advance what future interest rates will be. The interest rate on 1-year
(short-term) loans for companies with an A+ credit rating can range from a low of 4% to a high of 7%; the interest rate on 1-year loans for companies with a C− credit rating can range from a low of 10% to a high of
13%. Currently, the interest rate on 1-year loans for companies with an A+ rating is 5%; C− rated
companies pay 11% interest on 1-year loans. The IBC’s present interest rate for 1-year loans carrying a
B+ rating is 7.0%. Longer-term loans are available at somewhat higher interest rates—a 5-year loan
carries a 0.50% interest rate adder and a 10-year loan carries a 1.0% interest rate adder; these adders
apply to 5-year and 10-year loans granted at all credit ratings. New interest rates for 1-year, 5-year, and
10-year loans are announced at the beginning of each year and appear on the Corporate Lobby screen.
The company's banking arrangement with IBC calls for the company to be paid interest on any positive
cash balance in the company’s checking account at the beginning of each year. The agreed-upon interest
rate is set at three percentage points below the prevailing interest rate for short-term loans carrying an A+
credit rating. Going into Year 11, the interest rate of A+-rated short-terms loans is 5.5%; thus the money
market rate paid on cash balances will be 2.5%. If the company overdraws its checking account, IBC will
automatically issue your company a 1-year overdraft loan in an amount sufficient to bring your checking
account balance up to zero. The interest rate charged on overdraft loans carries a 2% adder (i.e. 9% if
your B+ credit rating carries a 7% short-term interest rate). The potential for overdrawing your checking
account is signaled by a negative cash balance in the bottom right corner of each decision screen
(however, even a very small positive cash balance runs the risk of having an overdraft loan, since there is
always uncertainty that sales volumes, revenues, and cash inflows will be as high as projected).