What is 'Capital Risk' and BREAKING DOWN 'Capital Risk'

[Nipa Sarker]

Capital risk is the potential of loss of part or all of an investment. It applies to the whole gamut of assets that are not subject to a guarantee of full return of original capital. Investors face capital risk when they invest in stocks, non-government bonds, real estate, commodities and other alternative assets. Also, when a company invests in a project, it exposes itself to risk that the project will not produce future returns to cover its capital invested.

Registration statements that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires for new securities have implicit or explicit language that prospective investors will assume capital risk by buying the securities. Ongoing filings such as Form 10-K remind investors through the "Risk Factors" section that a number of risks exist that could result in the loss of investor capital. Firms with higher risk profiles - clinical-stage biotechnology firms, for example — typically discuss at length the potential for an investor to lose capital. Axovant Sciences Ltd.'s 10-K for fiscal year 2017 contains 36 pages of risk disclosures. (Pfizer Inc., by contrast, carried only 11 pages of risk factors in its 10-K for fiscal year 2016.) When Axovant filed its 10-K on June 13, 2017, the stock closed at $22.51 per share. On the last trading day of 2017, the stock closed at $5.27. The explicit statement in the 10-K that "the market price of our common shares has been and is likely to continue to be highly volatile, and you may lose some or all of your investment" turned out to be very prescient.

Capital risk is also top-of-mind for project planners of a company. Capital budgeters analyze proposed investments in a project — a new product line or factory, for example — by modeling projected cash flows against the capital requirements of the project. The process of risk analysis will attempt to quantify capital risk by varying the model assumptions. No rational company will undertake a capital project if the model shows an unacceptable level of risk to capital invested. It should also be noted that a company may not choose to proceed with a project even if the NPV is projected to be greater than zero. For a firm to make an investment, its desired hurdle rate must be cleared.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalrisk.asp