Financial Management of the Construction Projects: A Proposed Cash Flow Analysis Model at Project Portfolio Level

Abstract

Construction sector is vulnerable to economic changes, especially during recession periods due to the high capital outlays, cost flexibility and high competition limiting the price. The changes of the business environment, often associated with shortage of funds, exchange rate fluctuation and political instability are increasing the construction projects financial risks. The actual economical context in the Central and East European countries is characterized by an aggressive competition and a lack of investments in construction area. The common behaviour of the contractor construction companies during these days is to accept a large number of risks beyond their power to mitigate them only to still stay on the business. In order to win the tender, they are bidding lower prices which make them vulnerable to the unexpected events during the project, especially from financial aspects. But the lack of cash during the project progress both at the employer level but mostly at the contractor level leads to delays, penalties and loss of opportunities which are reflected in the health of projects and organizations. The paper proposes a practical cash flow analysis model, which can be applied by the construction companies mainly when decisions about portfolio structure are taken. Applying this proposed model, the construction companies could avoid high financial exposures and loses.