Inflation, Investment and Valuation

In any context where a discounted cash flow valuation is required, there is the issue of estimating the continuing value. The most common way to do that is to assume that by the terminal horizon the company is in a steady state and is growing at a constant rate. The issue is how to handle inflation. The problem is that it is often done wrong and the impact is typically material. Because there remains significant confusion, in this paper we simplify the analysis by isolating the two key issues and providing example calculations. We show that even at the current 2% level proper treatment of inflation has a sizeable impact on valuation. If inflation were to accelerate as a result of current monetary and fiscal policies, the significance of this issue will increase.

Public versus Private: New Insights into the Private Company Discount

We examine whether private companies are valued with a discount compared to publicly traded companies. The analysis is based on a comparison of private company transactions with those of public companies. Whereas prior studies build pairs based on industry membership, we match private companies with public counterparts that are comparable in value relevant firm characteristics, i.e. profitability, risk, and growth, to calculate the percentage difference in valuation multiples. We find that private companies are valued on average with a discount on the EBITDA-multiple of 13% compared to their public counterparts. Private companies sell at lower discounts, if the acquirer firm is publicly listed. As size is associated with lower risk, we show that larger private companies sell at lower discounts.

Patent Valuation Using Citations: A Review and Sensitivity Analysis

As a result of studies demonstrating a correlation between a patent’s value and its forward citation count, patent valuation using forward citations has been increasingly used by practitioners when a patent’s value has not been otherwise established. Although potential limitations of patent citation analysis have been discussed in the past, there is little empirical research demonstrating the sensitivity of estimated patent values to various assumptions embedded within the method. We first summarize an approach that has been used by prior practitioners to estimate the relative value of patents within a portfolio using forward citations, and then perform various analyses to investigate the sensitivity of the approach to certain assumptions. We find that some concerns of prior literature are well-founded, while others are less so. For example, we confirm that biased valuations will result from failure to properly control for patent age and technology. Our analysis also finds that truncation bias is a problem when analyzing recently issued patents, which confirms findings from existing literature. We estimate the rate at which such truncation bias dissipates as patents age and find that the bias for the median patent is reduced to below 10% within five years from the date of publication, although additional variation can remain on an individualized level. Regarding the issue of self-citations, we find that the valuation approach using forward citation analysis can be (but is not always) sensitive to the issue of self-citations, with a median difference of 16.8%. Finally, the valuation approach using forward citation analysis appears to be robust to assumptions underlying patent cohort construction.

The Erroneous Selection of the Full Social Security Age as the Terminal Date for Lost Earnings Projections

It seems to be increasingly common that some personal injury lost earnings projections are being extended by some experts to the “Normal Retirement Age” (NRA) – the age where workers can receive full, unreduced Social Security benefits. The selection of this age often implies a rejection of the worklife expectancy. However, statistics on claiming behavior of Social Security benefit recipients show that only a minority of recipients wait until the NRA to claim benefits. We use actual claiming behavior and the respective ages to show the use of the NRA for determining the ending date of lost earnings projections, instead of the well-researched worklife expectancy, results in exaggerated and speculative lost earnings damages.

Distressed Firm Valuation: A Scenario Discounted Cash Flow Approach

Valuation of a distressed company is a very tricky issue, for which many approaches and methods have been provided by the literature. Unfortunately, many of the more suitable proposals from a theoretical point of view (i.e., those based on option pricing theory, and even integrated with game theory) are very difficult to apply to real cases. To face the many contingencies emerging in a real case valuation, a scenario discounted cash flow (SDCF) model is provided here. The focus is on companies at an advanced stage of distress, where their ability to operate as a going concern is in question, and maintenance or recovery of business continuity requires significant interventions in the firm’s strategic, operational, and financial structure. In this context, SDCF, with a number of arrangements elaborated here, appears useful for valuing assets, debt, and equity – from current or potential new investors – and the interactions between them, which are particularly critical for distressed companies. At the same time, SDCF takes into account the firm’s liquidation option, not only at the valuation date but even after a restructuring plan has been launched. The going-concern value including the liquidation option should be the reference point for judging the suitability of business continuity compared to liquidation. In presenting the model, the key concepts and methodology adopted are set out following a numerical example inspired by a real case.

Is Financial Distress Value Relevant? – Implications for Multiple-Based Valuation

In relative valuation peer groups of comparable companies are essential to derive the value of the firm. Valuing a target firm that is in financial distress by using a set of healthy peer group firms probably leads to an overvaluation. We examine whether the financial distress risk has an influence on a company’s value and quantify the discount through financial distress. We identify financial distress by Standard and Poor’s long-term issuer ratings and Altman’s z″-score. We then match the identified firms in financial distress with healthy counterparts that are comparable in value relevant characteristics, i. e. profitability, risk, and growth, to estimate the percentage difference in valuation multiples. Using rating information, in every year almost half of the companies are in financial distress whereas by Altman’s z″-score about 20% of the companies in the sample are in financial distress. We find that the discount caused by financial distress makes up about 4–7% of firm value. The discount increases for lower rating classes and lower z″-scores. Besides the degree of financial distress, market downturns as the financial crisis affect the distress discount.

Valuation with Multiples: A Conceptual Analysis

Estimating the market price of a company with multiples is common practice. Especially if several multiples are used simultaneously, the bandwidth of value estimates might be wide. The paper aims at narrowing down this bandwidth with a conceptual analysis. I analyze the different ways to average peer multiples, the links between common multiples (‘inter-multiple’ analysis), the relevance of their components (‘intra-multiple’ analysis) and the resulting choice between a bottom-up and a top-down approach for deriving a multiple, and the impact of differing capital structures.

Lost Profits in Intellectual Property Cases

Much has been written about various remedies in litigation involving intellectual property (“IP”) infringements, some economic and other non-economic. A common remedy across different types of IP is lost profits. This paper explores similarities and differences among different types of IP infringement: patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secrets. Common elements needed in any lost profits claim, especially causality, are presented and along with damages implications for plaintiff and infringer by type of IP. These are a few of issues considered along with brief discussion of key statutes, cases, and the alternative of damages based on reasonable royalty rates.

Terminal Value in SMEs: Testing the Multiple EV/EBITDA Approach

This study focuses on answering whether EV/EBITDA multiple of public companies in the food industry can be useful to obtain the Terminal Value (TV) in the valuation of unlisted small and medium-sized food companies. A case study into Spanish unlisted agribusinesses is designed for several samples and accounting years from 2010 to 2013. By means of a discounted cash flow (DCF) model combined with bootstrap techniques, the TV/EBITDA empirical distribution of the unlisted multiples is obtained for two different scenarios of free cash flow (FCF) growth, and then compared with the EV/EBITDA of the listed companies in the same industry. The results show that the stock market EV/EBITDA multiple may be used to determine the TV in the valuation process of unlisted small and medium-sized food companies that consistently obtain positive cash flows.