Capital Rationing

The act of placing restrictions on the amount of new investments or projects undertaken by a company. This is accomplished by imposing a higher cost of capital for investment consideration or by setting a ceiling on the specific sections of the budget. Companies may want to implement capital rationing in situations where past returns of investment were lower than expected. For example, suppose ABC Corp. has a cost of capital of 10% but that the company has undertaken too many projects, many of which are incomplete. This causes the company's actual return on investment to drop well below the 10% level. As a result, management decides to place a cap on the number of new projects by raising the cost of capital for these new projects to 15%. Starting fewer new projects would give the company more time and resources to complete existing projects.

Capital rationing is technique which is used with capital budgeting techniques. Capital rationing technique is used when company has limited fund for investing in profitable investment proposals. In other words Capital rationing is a strategy employed by companies to make investments based on the current relevant circumstances of the company. For example, Company fixes his priority to invest his money in more profitable projects. Suppose a company has $ 1 million dollar and after using the Profitability index technique of capital budgeting company found that three projects of $ 600000, $ 300000 and $ 400000 are profitable out of seven projects but if company has limited cash of $ 1 million only. With this money, company can use capital rationing technique. Under this technique, if company sees that First and third proposal’s profitability index is high than second, then they will select only two projects combination out of three projects. Read also second example of capital rationing.