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Fundamental Principles of Pension Fund Risk Management
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Introduction to Turnover Ratios
Turnover ratios (also known as efficiency ratios) are a very important class of ratios. These ratios are not only used by financial personnel but also by the people in charge of operations. However, we are going to consider these ratios from the point of view of outside investors. This is because judgments have to be […]
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The Product as a Service (PaaS) business model is poised to change the business world in a big way. There are many traditional industries that are being disrupted by this model. Start-ups, as well as established corporations, are all taking steps to adopt this model. Many industries such as automobiles and electronics are likely to […]
We have seen that a perpetuity represents an infinite stream of future cash flows. However, we have also seen that as time passes the value of these cash flows constantly diminishes. $100 may be able to buy us quite a few goods today, but in 50 years time $100 will not be nearly as valuable as it is today. It is for this reason that receiving infinite payments is not enough. The payments must also keep growing at a certain rate. This will ensure that they are not considerable behind inflation. This is the idea behind a growing perpetuity. The same has been explained in detail in this article:
As already stated, a growing perpetuity involves payments that do not remain fixed. Instead these payments keep on growing at the same constant rate of growth. So, if the rate of growth of the payments is 7%, each payment will be 7% more than the payment received before it.
The present value of a growing perpetuity can be derived from a complex mathematical calculation. This is because a growing perpetuity is also an infinite series which has a finite sum. For our purposes, we can just remember the formula required for our calculation.
Present Value (Growing Perpetuity) = D / (R - G)
Where:
D = Expected cash flow in period 1
R = Expected rate of return
G = Rate of growth of perpetuity payments
However, we need to understand that for this formula to hold true, G must always be greater than R. If G is less than R or equal to R, the formula does not hold true. This is because, the stream of payments will cease to be an infinitely decreasing series of numbers that have a finite sum.
Examples:
Growing perpetuities are found in a variety of places in our daily lives. Some of them have been mentioned below:
The growing perpetuity, thus assumes that we will lose a small amount of the real value of money every year. Just like the perpetuity, a growing perpetuity can only be summed up because the series is infinitely decreasing. The growing perpetuity assumes that we will lose the real value of money at a slower rate as compared to an ordinary perpetuity.
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