3. Understanding the IRR and NPV The net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) methods of investment analysis are interrelated and are sometimes used together to make capital budgeting decisions. Consider the case of Blue Hamster Manufacturing Inc.: Last Tuesday, Blue Hamster Manufacturing Inc. lost a portion of its planning and financial data when both its main and its backup servers crashed. The company's CFO remembers that the internal rate of return (IRR) of Project Gamma is 14.6%, but he can't recall how much Blue Hamster originally invested in the project nor the project's net present value (NPV). However, he found a note that detailed the annual net cash flows expected to be generated by Project Gamma. They are: Year Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Cash Flow $2,400,000 $4,500,000 $4,500,000 $4,500,000 Year 4 $4,500,000 The CFO has asked you to compute Project Gamma's initial investment using the information currently available to you. He has offered the following suggestions and observations: A project's IRR represents the return the project would generate when its NPV is zero or the discounted value of its cash inflows equals the discounted value of its cash outflows when the cash flows are discounted using the project's IRR The level of risk exhibited by Project Gamma is the same as that exhibited by the company's average project, which means that Project Gamma's net cash flows can be discounted using Blue Hamster's 9% WACC. and its NPV is (rounded to the nearest whole Given the data and hints, Project Gamma's initial investment is dollar) A project's IRR will if the project's cash inflows increase, and everything else is unaffected