Capex vs upfront investment costs

It depends on the context.

You may be asked to calculate the ROI or payback period on a given capital expenditure (e.g., Client is spending $100 in CapEx on a new machine that will allow for $10 in savings every year); in this case you should think of the capital expenditure as the upfront investment cost.

Alternatively, your client may be acquiring a company for $100 that generates $10 in EBITDA and requires $5 in capital expenditures (sometimes referred to as "maintenance CapEx" but not necessarily) every year; in this case you'll need to subtract the CapEx ($5) from the EBITDA ($10) in order to get to the free cash flow that the $100 company produces.

Hope this makes sense!

When in doubt, I would just explicitly clarfiy with your interviewer (1) what is an upfront, one-time cost, (2) what is an ongoing variable cost, and (3) what is an ongoing fixed cost. In this way you can avoid any confusion about what's meant by CapEx in the context of the case.

Good luck with your interviews!

Hi there,

Not necessarily.

• Capex = Expenditure in Long Term assets (1 or more years). Capital Expenditures are normally subject to depreciation or amortization
• Upfront cost = Any cost you may have before you start an investment/project

Therefore, you could have Capex which is not an Upfront cost.

An Upfront cost is made most of the time by Capex (Capital expenditure), but could also occasionally include Opex (Operating expenditure) – for example an upfront legal fee.

“Upfront investment cost” should mean just Capex in the contest of a case (Opex should not be considered an investment), but I would clarify it with the interviewer to be sure.

Best,

Francesco

If you get these terms in an interview - best to clarify and resolve ambiguity.

• Upfront investment costs: This could generally be referring to the "project cost" - "initial investment" - " upfront capex" etc. etc. This is essentially your cash flow drawdown in the first year (or spread across 2+ year for a large project)
• Upfront Capex: This is same as "Upfront investment costs".
• Growth Capex: This is a separate terms used generally for projects intended for increasing revenue. Technically it is the same as Upfront Capex.
• Maintenance Capex: This is the capex that goes into maintaining an asset. Depending on the size of the money - it can either be capitalized or considered as opex actually.

They are not. There is important nuance here.

Capex is the fixed cost (annual cost) to buy, maintain, and mprove fixed assets. They relate directly to a P&L.

An investment cost is the upfront cost (i.e. "buy") of an investment. It relates to an ROI.

So, investment costs are just one type of capex!

Hi, they are different and I agree with the accurate definitions of other coaches. I simply would like to add these are dependent on the context, when you are assessing an investment in a case you usually have to consider only upfront cost vs recurring profit. In all the other cases you only have capex

Best,
Antonello

No,

• an upfront investment most of the time is capex (i.e., is capitalized in the Balance Sheet and admortized yearly) - but not always. For example R&D expenses - in some portion and depending on the accounting standards - can not be capitalized and are expensed in  the year in which they occur, i.e., they are opex
• viceversa capex could be recurring and not upfront - i.e. manteinance capex for machineries