Financial considerations when making capital investments abroad

Abstract

There are many financial considerations which enterprises should take into account when they are contemplating the possibility to make capital investments abroad. The long-term nature of capital investments emphasises the importance of the financial decisions as enterprises are often not in a position to opt out easily. This research paper focuses on the financial considerations only and other considerations, such as political, economical and technological matters do not receive any attention. The objective of this research focuses on the improvement of financial decision-making when enterprises are contemplating capital investments abroad. This objective is achieved by paying attention to the impact of following aspects: taxation, inflation rates, foreign exchange rates, interest rates, the capital structure and the cost of capital, capital and labour intensity, labour productivity, as well as the cash flow, liquidity, solvency and profitability considerations. An empirical study which has 29 top companies in South Africa as the respondents, provided detailed information concerning capital investments made abroad. As South Africa is a developing country with an emerging market economy, the empirical results should be valuable to enterprises in other countries with emerging market economies.