Norris Co. has developed an improved version of its most popular product. To get this improvement to the market, will cost $48 million and will return an additional $13.5 million for 5 years in net cash flows. The firm's debt-equity ratio is .25, the cost of equity is 13 percent, the pretax cost of debt is 9 percent, and the tax rate is 30 percent. What is the net present value of this proposed project?

NPV = $1.49  million

Explanation:

The NPV is the difference between the PV of cash inflows and the PV of cash outflows. A positive NPV implies a good investment decision and a negative figure implies the opposite.  

NPV of an investment:  

NPV = PV of Cash inflows - PV of cash outflow  

But we will need to work out the discount rate to be used for discounting the cash flows. Hence, we need to determine the cost of capital as follows:

Step 1: After-tax cost of debt

After tax cost of debt = pre-tax cost of debt × (1-tax rate rate)

                                 = 9%× (1--0.3)=6.3%

Step 2 : Weighted Average cost of capital (WACC)

WACC=( 0.25×6.3%) + (0.75× 13%) =11.325 %

Step 3:Net Present Value (NPV)

PV of cash inflow= (1- (1.11325^-5)/0.11325)× 13.5 = 49.49  million

Initial cost = $48 million

NPV = 49.49  million -  $48 million  =$1.49  million

NPV = $1.49  million

answer; post closing trial balance;