Ranking Investment Proposals: Payback Period, Accounting Rate of Return, and Net Present Value

Presented is information pertaining to the cash flows of three mutually exclusive investment proposals:

	Proposal A	Proposal B	Proposal C
Initial investment	$ 100,000	$ 100,000	$ 100,000
Cash flow from operations
Year 1	60,000	25,000	110,000
Year 2	40,000	40,000
Year 3	35,000	70,000
Disinvestment	0	0	0
Life (years)	3 years	3 years	1 year

Rank these investment proposals using the payback period, the accounting rate of return on initial investment, and the net present value criteria. Assume that the organization's cost of capital is 12% and that all investments are in depreciable assets.

Note: Follow rounding instructions noted for each computation. Use a negative sign with your answers, when appropriate.

	Proposal A	Proposal B	Proposal C	Best proposal
Payback period (years); Round answers 2 decimal places.	Answer	Answer	Answer	AnswerABCA,BA,CB,C
Accounting rate of return; Round answers to 4 decimal places.	Answer	Answer	Answer	AnswerABCA,BA,CB,C
Net present value; Round answers to nearest whole number.	Answer	Answer	Answer	AnswerABCA,BA,CB,C