The Art of Business Valuation
Accurately Valuing a Small Business
Gregory R. Caruso
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Art of Business Valuation
Accurately Valuing a Small Business
Gregory R. Caruso
About This Book
Starting from the practical viewpoint of, "I would rather be approximately right than perfectly wrong" this book provides a commonsense comprehensive framework for small business valuation that offers solutions to common problems faced by valuators and consultants both in performing valuations and providing ancillary advisory services to business owners, sellers, and buyers. If you conduct small business valuations, you may be seeking guidance on topics and problems specific to your work. Focus on What Matters: A Different Way of Valuing a Small Business fills a previous void in valuation resources. It provides a practical and comprehensive framework for small and very small business valuation (Companies under $10 million of revenues and often under $5 million of revenues), with a specialized focus on the topics and problems that confront valuators of these businesses.
Larger businesses typically have at least Reviewed Accrual Accounting statements as a valuation starting point. However, smaller businesses rarely have properly reviewed and updated financials. Focus on What Matters looks at the issue of less reliable data, which affects every part of the business valuation. You'll find valuation solutions for facing this challenge.
As a small business valuator, you can get direction on working with financial statements of lower quality. You can also consider answers to key questions as you explore how to value each small business.
- Is this a small business or a job?
- How much research and documentation do you need to comply with standards?
- How can you use cash basis statements when businesses have large receivables and poor cutoffs?
- Should you use the market method or income method of valuation?
- Techniques that improve reliability of the market method multiplier
- How might you tax affect using the income method with the advent of the Estate of Jones and Section 199A?
- Do you have to provide an opinion of value or will a calculation work?
- How do you calculate personal goodwill?
- As a valuation professional how can you bring value to owners and buyers preparing to enter into a business sale transaction?
- How does the SBA loan process work and why is it essential to current small business values?
- What is the business brokerage or sale process and how does it work?
- How do owners increase business value prior to a business sale?
This book examines these and other questions you may encounter in your valuation process. You'll also find helpful solutions to common issues that arise when a small business is valued.
Frequently asked questions
Information
CHAPTER 1
What Is My Business Worth?
In theory, the value of a business or an interest in a business depends on the future benefits that will accrue to it …—Shannon Pratt, Valuing a Business, 4th Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000)
VALUE IS NOT PRICE
VALUE IS …
NOTE
- 1. Earn-outs are adjustments to the price based on results that occur after a sale closing. Seller notes are sometimes adjusted or not paid after closing. Each of these can be viewed as an adjustment to the price paid. There is no mechanism for these post-closing price adjustments to be reported to the transaction databases.
CHAPTER 2
Valuation Basics
VALUATION IS MODELING
THREE PRIMARY APPROACHES TO BUSINESS VALUATION
- Market Approach. The market approach uses the theory of substitution. Market comparable sales are substituted for the company being valued. In practice, this means that market comparable cash flows and financial information are compared and substituted for the subject company to estimate a value. This is the primary means used for valuations of small and very small businesses.
- Income Approach. The income approach examines what an investor would pay for a business, based primarily on its cash flows. Investors have many choices of how to deploy their money. Using financial data collected since 1926, the risk and reward actions of investors are used to estimate the value of the subject company.
- Asset Approach. The asset approach estimates the current value of the individual assets of the business. These approaches tend to ignore or underestimate the value of intangible assets, such as goodwill. For this reason, the asset method is often referred to as a floor value. If the business is not generating value based on its cash flows in the market approaches and income approaches, then the assets may be sold, establishing a floor value or high liquidation value. The asset method tends to be used when the subject company may be considering whether to stop operating, owns valuable assets such as real estate, definable and protectable intellectual propert...