Valuations and Exit Strategies

There are five methods of valuing a firm namely:

• Asset Valuation where the value of the firm is the value of its tangible assets like the plant, building, machinery, fixed assets, inventory etc. Asset valuations might be undertaken for a number of reasons but the most common is when a form is quitting the industry or is merging its assets with that of a another firm.

• Earnings Based Valuations which value the firm as a going concern. Earnings valuations use Discounted Cash flow methods to value the future ‘Free Cash Flows’ of the company and the terminal value of the company. These are then converted if need be into revenue multiple or Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) multiples commonly used in relative valuations;

• Relative Valuations which are simplified thumb rules of revenue and EBIT multiples by industry extracted from Earnings Valuations conducted on a set of selected firms representing the industry;

• Contingent Claim Valuations which are Real Options or assets whose value is contingent on the increase in value of another asset.

• Valuation of intangibles and Brands which employ methodologies to value intangible assets that are indentifiable, separable and capable of systematic valuation. Brand valuations are an example. There are three main approaches to value intangibles namely:

1. Cost
2. Market Value
3. Economic Value

Key benefits of carrying out an earnings based valuation and/or contingent valuations are:

1. They allow firms that are going concerns to value their ability to generate free cash flows in the near and far term;
2. They make an estimate of the WACC and the ability of these future free cash flows to create wealth;
3. They estimate the terminal value of the company and therefore capture the effect of the company’s intangible assets like branding, intellectual capital etc;
4. They permit the owners an intelligent and economically way of transiting from the business; and/or
5. Provide for effective Succession Planning.