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By Alex Zylberglait, September 17, 2009 8:00 am

Calculating Modified Internal Rate of Return

MIRR is an alternative to the traditional calculation of the IRR in that it computes an IRR with an explicit reinvestment rate assumption.

The discount rate that equates the present value of all negative cash flows (including the down payment) to the future or terminal value of all the positive cash flows is the MIRR.

While the internal rate of return (IRR) assumes the cash flows from a project are reinvested at the IRR, the modified IRR assumes that all cash flows are reinvested at the firm’s cost of capital. Therefore, MIRR more accurately reflects the profitability of a project.

For example, say a two-year project with an initial outlay of $195 and a cost of capital of 12%, will return $121 in the first year and $131 in the second year. To find the IRR of the project so that the net present value (NPV) = 0:

Thus, using the IRR could result in a positive NPV (good project), but it could turn out to be a bad project (NPV is negative) if the MIRR were used. As a result, using MIRR versus IRR better reflects the value of a project.

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Alex Zylberglait provides commercial real estate investment advisory as well as research, estate planning, asset allocation, valuation, financing, special assets services, transaction advisory and commercial property acquisition and disposition services.

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By Alex Zylberglait, September 15, 2009 9:31 am

Internal Rate of Return

IRR equates the present value of the positive cash flows and the present value of the negative cash flows. The decision rule for IRR is if the IRR is greater than or equal to an investor’s required rate of return, the investment should be accepted; otherwise it should be rejected.

The discount rate often used in capital budgeting that makes the net present value of all cash flows from a particular project equal to zero. Generally speaking, the higher a project’s internal rate of return, the more desirable it is to undertake the project. As such, IRR can be used to rank several prospective projects an investor is considering. Assuming all other factors are equal among the various projects, the project with the highest IRR would probably be considered the best and undertaken first.

IRR is sometimes referred to as “economic rate of return (ERR)”.
You can think of IRR as the rate of growth a project is expected to generate. While the actual rate of return that a given project ends up generating will often differ from its estimated IRR rate, a project with a substantially higher IRR value than other available options would still provide a much better chance of strong growth.

IRRs can also be compared against prevailing rates of return in the securities market. If a firm can’t find any projects with IRRs greater than the returns that can be generated in the financial markets, it may simply choose to invest its retained earnings into the market.

Up next this Thursday, I’ll show you how to calculate for the Modified Internal Rate of Return.

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Alex Zylberglait provides commercial real estate investment advisory as well as research, estate planning, asset allocation, valuation, financing, special assets services, transaction advisory and commercial property acquisition and disposition services.