Business Valuation Quotes

Every business has to prioritize protecting its assets.

The value of intangibles derived from intellectual property rights and trademarks from brands, inventions, software code, and programs has never been higher.

The value of a business is a function of how well the financial capital and the intellectual capital are managed by the human capital. You'd better get the human capital part right.

Exposition is a mode of thought, a method of learning, and a means of expression. Almost all of the characteristics we associate with mature discourse were amplified by typography, which has the strongest possible bias toward exposition: a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance for delayed response.

The value of a business is a function of how well the financial capital and the intellectual capital are managed by the human capital. You'd better get the human capital part right.

Discounted Cash Flow The discounted cash flow method of valuation is the most sophisticated (and the most difficult) method to use in valuing the business. With this method you must estimate all the cash influxes to investors over time (dividends and ultimate stock sales) and then compute a “net present value” using an assumed discount rate (implied interest rate).

In this kind of situation one might well ask: why continue to make the 80 percent of products that only generate 20 percent of profits? Companies rarely ask these questions, perhaps because to answer them would mean very radical action: to stop doing four-fifths of what you are doing is not a trivial change. What J-B Say called the work of entrepreneurs, modern financiers call arbitrage. International financial markets are very quick to correct anomalies in valuation, for example between exchange rates. But business organizations

They asked forty-two experienced investors in the firm to estimate the fair value of a stock (the price at which the investors would be indifferent to buying or selling). The investors based their analysis on a one-page description of the business; the data included simplified profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statements for the past three years and projections for the next two. Median noise, measured in the same way as in the insurance company, was 41%. Such large differences among investors in the same firm, using the same valuation methods, cannot be good news.

Harry Markowitz won a Nobel Prize for the insight that diversification is the only free lunch in the investment business. However, if all investments are in tech, much of the benefit of diversification is lost since tech valuations are correlated. For early-stage companies, profits are in the distant future, and therefore valuations are sensitive to interest rates. Shifting sentiment plays a role, and frequently both market psychology and monetary policy are factors, creating boom/bust cycles such as the internet bubble of 1999–2000 and the more recent recalibration of tech in 2022. There is a frequently overlooked temporal dimension to diversification. Other things being equal, a fund that invests $100 million a year over ten years is less risky than a fund that invests $500 million a year over two years. The former fund will likely invest across market cycles, which should lead to a lower volatility of outcomes, even if both funds make an identical number of investments with a similar risk profile.

Buying and selling is now regarded as something ordinary, like the art of reading and writing; everyone is now trained to it even when he is not a tradesman exercising himself daily in the art; precisely as formerly in the period of uncivilized humanity, everyone was a hunter and exercised himself day by day in the art of hunting. Hunting was then something common: but just as this finally became a privilege of the powerful and noble, and thereby lost the character of the commonplace and the ordinary - by ceasing to be necessary and by becoming an affair of fancy and luxury, so it might become the same some day with buying and selling. Conditions of society are imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in which the necessity for this art will become quite lost; perhaps it may then happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of the prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling as a luxury of sentiment. It is then only that commerce would acquire nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves just as readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and politics: while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then have entirely altered. Already even politics ceases to be the business of a gentleman; and it is possible that one day it may be found to be so vulgar as to be brought, like all party literature and daily literature, under the rubric: "Prostitution of the intellect.

Commerce and Nobility.—Buying and selling is now regarded as something ordinary, like the art of reading and writing; everyone is now trained to it even when he is not a tradesman exercising himself daily in the art; precisely as formerly in the period of uncivilised humanity, everyone was a hunter and exercised himself day by day in the art of hunting. Hunting was then something common: but just as this finally became a privilege of the powerful and noble, and thereby lost the character of the commonplace and the ordinary—by ceasing to be necessary and by becoming an affair of fancy and luxury,—so it might become the same some day with buying and selling. Conditions of society are imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in which the necessity for this art will become quite lost; perhaps it may then happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of the prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling as a luxury of sentiment. It is then only that commerce would acquire nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves just as readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and politics: while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then have entirely altered. Already even politics ceases to be the business of a gentleman; and it is possible that one day it may be found to be so vulgar as to be brought, like all party literature and daily literature, under the rubric: 'Prostitution of the intellect.

But being short something where your loss is unlimited is quite different than being long something that you’ve already paid for. And it’s tempting. You see way more stocks that are dramatically overvalued in your career than you will see stocks that are dramatically undervalued. I mean there — it’s the nature of securities markets to occasionally promote various things to the sky, so that securities will frequently sell for 5 or 10 times what they’re worth, and they will very, very seldom sell for 20 percent or 10 percent of what they’re worth. So, therefore, you see these much greater discrepancies between price and value on the overvaluation side. So you might think it’s easier to make money on short selling. And all I can say is, it hasn’t been for me. I don’t think it’s been for Charlie. It is a very, very tough business because of the fact that you face unlimited losses, and because of the fact that people that have overvalued stocks — very overvalued stocks — are frequently on some scale between promoter and crook. And that’s why they get there. And once there — And they also know how to use that very valuation to bootstrap value into the business, because if you have a stock that’s selling at 100 that’s worth 10, obviously it’s to your interest to go out and issue a whole lot of shares. And if you do that, when you get all through, the value can be 50. In fact, there’s a lot of chain letter-type stock promotions that are sort of based on the implicit assumption that the management will keep doing that. And if they do it once and build it to 50 by issuing a lot of shares at 100 when it’s worth 10, now the value is 50 and people say, “Well, these guys are so good at that. Let’s pay 200 for it or 300,” and then they could do it again and so on. It’s not usually that — quite that clear in their minds. But that’s the basic principle underlying a lot of stock promotions. And if you get caught up in one of those that is successful, you know, you can run out of money before the promoter runs out of ideas. In the end, they almost always work. I mean, I would say that, of the things that we have felt like shorting over the years, the batting average is very high in terms of eventual — that they would work out very well eventually if you held them through. But it is very painful and it’s — in my experience, it was a whole lot easier to make money on the long side.

Everywhere you look with this young lady, there’s a purity of motivation,” Shultz told him. “I mean she really is trying to make the world better, and this is her way of doing it.” Mattis went out of his way to praise her integrity. “She has probably one of the most mature and well-honed sense of ethics—personal ethics, managerial ethics, business ethics, medical ethics that I’ve ever heard articulated,” the retired general gushed. Parloff didn’t end up using those quotes in his article, but the ringing endorsements he heard in interview after interview from the luminaries on Theranos’s board gave him confidence that Elizabeth was the real deal. He also liked to think of himself as a pretty good judge of character. After all, he’d dealt with his share of dishonest people over the years, having worked in a prison during law school and later writing at length about such fraudsters as the carpet-cleaning entrepreneur Barry Minkow and the lawyer Marc Dreier, both of whom went to prison for masterminding Ponzi schemes. Sure, Elizabeth had a secretive streak when it came to discussing certain specifics about her company, but he found her for the most part to be genuine and sincere. Since his angle was no longer the patent case, he didn’t bother to reach out to the Fuiszes. — WHEN PARLOFF’S COVER STORY was published in the June 12, 2014, issue of Fortune, it vaulted Elizabeth to instant stardom. Her Journal interview had gotten some notice and there had also been a piece in Wired, but there was nothing like a magazine cover to grab people’s attention. Especially when that cover featured an attractive young woman wearing a black turtleneck, dark mascara around her piercing blue eyes, and bright red lipstick next to the catchy headline “THIS CEO IS OUT FOR BLOOD.” The story disclosed Theranos’s valuation for the first time as well as the fact that Elizabeth owned more than half of the company. There was also the now-familiar comparison to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. This time it came not from George Shultz but from her old Stanford professor Channing Robertson. (Had Parloff read Robertson’s testimony in the Fuisz trial, he would have learned that Theranos was paying him $500,000 a year, ostensibly as a consultant.) Parloff also included a passage about Elizabeth’s phobia of needles—a detail that would be repeated over and over in the ensuing flurry of coverage his story unleashed and become central to her myth. When the editors at Forbes saw the Fortune article, they immediately assigned reporters to confirm the company’s valuation and the size of Elizabeth’s ownership stake and ran a story about her in their next issue. Under the headline “Bloody Amazing,” the article pronounced her “the youngest woman to become a self-made billionaire.” Two months later, she graced one of the covers of the magazine’s annual Forbes 400 issue on the richest people in America. More fawning stories followed in USA Today, Inc., Fast Company, and Glamour, along with segments on NPR, Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, and CBS News. With the explosion of media coverage came invitations to numerous conferences and a cascade of accolades. Elizabeth became the youngest person to win the Horatio Alger Award. Time magazine named her one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. President Obama appointed her a U.S. ambassador for global entrepreneurship, and Harvard Medical School invited her to join its prestigious board of fellows.

These organizations agree on three major approaches to business valuation:  The asset approach: Also known as the cost approach, this valuation approach is based on finding the fair market value of assets (the easiest ones to value are tangible assets) and deducting the liabilities to determine the net asset value or the net worth of the business.  The market approach: This approach compares your company or a target company with similar companies. You can use comparisons to publicly traded companies or actual sales transactions for similar businesses. These valuations are frequently expressed in ratio form.  The income approach: This approach focuses on the future economic benefits you're anticipating from a business —better known as income. This amount is expressed in today's dollars, and is also known as present value.

In West's guide, rule-of-thumb guidance comes in two formats that most valuation experts recognize:  Percentage of annual sales: If a business had total sales of $ 100,000 last year and the multiple for that business was 40 percent of annual sales, the price based on that particular rule of thumb would be $ 40,000.  Multiple of earnings: An earnings multiplier makes the most sense to prospective buyers. It directly addresses the buyer's motive to make money: to achieve a return on investment. In many small companies, this multiple is commonly used against what is known as seller's discretionary earnings (SDE), which are earnings before accounting for the following items: • Income taxes • Nonrecurring income and expenses • Nonoperating income and expenses • Depreciating an amortization • Interest expense or income • Owner's total compensation for one owner/ operator after adjusting the total compensation of all owners to market value

When the economy is good and everyone is making money, banks and other lenders can be surprisingly loose about demanding adequate valuation of the assets they're basing their loan amounts on. But when times get bad, it's just like Robert Frost once said: "A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

You can gain great insights about investing from a careful study of Buffett’s Generals. He was constantly appraising the value of as many stocks as he could find, looking for the ones where he felt he had a reasonable ability to understand the business and come up with an estimate for its worth. With a prodigious memory and many years of intense study, he built up an expansive memory bank full of these appraisals and opinions on a huge number of companies. Then, when Mr. Market offered one at a sufficiently attractive discount to its appraised value, he bought it; he often concentrated heavily in a handful of the most attractive ones. Good valuation work and proper temperament have always been the two keys pillars of his success as an investor. Buffett

THE FOLLOWING DAY, the Apple share price fell 10 percent and the company lost $75 billion in value. The single-day decline was Apple’s biggest in six years and sank its valuation to a level it had not seen since February 2017. It shook the U.S. economy. The company had become one of the most widely held institutional stocks, included in mutual funds, index funds, and 401(k)s. Thanks in part to Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, everyone from grandmothers in Florida to autoworkers in the Midwest had an interest in Apple’s business. They all suffered.

Third, the idea that venture capitalists get into deals on the strength of their brands can be exaggerated. A deal seen by a partner at Sequoia will also be seen by rivals at other firms: in a fragmented cottage industry, there is no lack of competition. Often, winning the deal depends on skill as much as brand: it’s about understanding the business model well enough to impress the entrepreneur; it’s about judging what valuation might be reasonable. One careful tally concluded that new or emerging venture partnerships capture around half the gains in the top deals, and there are myriad examples of famous VCs having a chance to invest and then flubbing it.[6] Andreessen Horowitz passed on Uber. Its brand could not save it. Peter Thiel was an early investor in Stripe. He lacked the conviction to invest as much as Sequoia. As to the idea that branded venture partnerships have the “privilege” of participating in supposedly less risky late-stage investment rounds, this depends from deal to deal. A unicorn’s momentum usually translates into an extremely high price for its shares. In the cases of Uber and especially WeWork, some late-stage investors lost millions. Fourth, the anti-skill thesis underplays venture capitalists’ contributions to portfolio companies. Admittedly, these contributions can be difficult to pin down. Starting with Arthur Rock, who chaired the board of Intel for thirty-three years, most venture capitalists have avoided the limelight. They are the coaches, not the athletes. But this book has excavated multiple cases in which VC coaching made all the difference. Don Valentine rescued Atari and then Cisco from chaos. Peter Barris of NEA saw how UUNET could become the new GE Information Services. John Doerr persuaded the Googlers to work with Eric Schmidt. Ben Horowitz steered Nicira and Okta through their formative moments. To be sure, stories of venture capitalists guiding portfolio companies may exaggerate VCs’ importance: in at least some of these cases, the founders might have solved their own problems without advice from their investors. But quantitative research suggests that venture capitalists do make a positive impact: studies repeatedly find that startups backed by high-quality VCs are more likely to succeed than others.[7] A quirky contribution to this literature looks at what happens when airline routes make it easier for a venture capitalist to visit a startup. When the trip becomes simpler, the startup performs better.[8]

Many financial analysts will find Emerson and Emery more interesting and appealing stocks than the other two—primarily, perhaps, because of their better “market action,” and secondarily because of their faster recent growth in earnings. Under our principles of conservative investment the first is not a valid reason for selection—that is something for the speculators to play around with. The second has validity, but within limits. Can the past growth and the presumably good prospects of Emery Air Freight justify a price more than 60 times its recent earnings?1 Our answer would be: Maybe for someone who has made an in-depth study of the possibilities of this company and come up with exceptionally firm and optimistic conclusions. But not for the careful investor who wants to be reasonably sure in advance that he is not committing the typical Wall Street error of overenthusiasm for good performance in earnings and in the stock market.* The same cautionary statements seem called for in the case of Emerson Electric, with a special reference to the market’s current valuation of over a billion dollars for the intangible, or earning-power, factor here. We should add that the “electronics industry,” once a fair-haired child of the stock market, has in general fallen on disastrous days. Emerson is an outstanding exception, but it will have to continue to be such an exception for a great many years in the future before the 1970 closing price will have been fully justified by its subsequent performance. By contrast, both ELTRA at 27 and Emhart at 33 have the earmarks of companies with sufficient value behind their price to constitute reasonably protected investments. Here the investor can, if he wishes, consider himself basically a part owner of these businesses, at a cost corresponding to what the

It is clearly evident that unethical and corrupt practices were the bedrock of Prannoy Roy journalism. After getting the Doordarshan contract through patronage and a quid pro quo, he shrewdly cashed out over Rs.23 crores (to his personal account in 1994-95) in a short span of few years (see Table 1 below) by selling shares at astronomical valuations to a foreign investor. Simply put, through political patronage he built a business and cashed out for personal profit.  Table 1. Source: NDTV public issue prospectus filed with SEBI in 2004. Date of transfer No. of Equity Shares (Face value of Rs.10) Cost per Shares (Rs.) Price (Rs.) Nature of payment No. of Equity Shares (of Face Value of Rs.4) post splitting 21 Oct 1994 48,140 10 675 Cash 120,350 16 May 1995 99,070 10 675 Cash 247,675 Jul 21 1995 121,625 10 675 Cash 304,063 Aug 22 1995 81,481 10 675 Cash 203,702 After inking favorable deals with Doordarshan, many people in Central Government in 1997 helped NDTV to clinch a magical figure deal with Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV[3] during the liberalization period. The Lutyens Delhi’s cozy club arm twisted Murdoch into an agreement with Prannoy Roy’s NDTV to launch the Star News channel.

Business owners of small to medium-sized closely-held companies tend to encounter the fair market value standard more than the other standards of value.

The singular virtue of the [Twitter] fiasco over which [Elon] Musk has presided is the possibility that the outcome will sever, at least temporarily, the American conflation of wealth with intellect. Market valuation is not proof of genius.

Public utilities, including issues relating to the valuation of utility property and the proper basis for rate regulation, were major areas of institutionalist research. Concepts of intangible property and of goodwill were developed within this discussion, again deriving from Veblen. Clark devoted several chapters in The Social Control of Business (1926) to the topic, whereas Commons devoted considerable space to the concept of intangible property, goodwill, and valuation issues in his Legal Foundations (Commons 1924a, pp. 157–215).

Don’t dress up a business as something it’s not, in order to attract a high valuation. For example, trying to conjure a technology angle (often in the form of recurring “as a service” revenue streams that emulate richly valued SaaS businesses), then characterizing the business with the customary tech “alphabet raising label” (ie series A, B or C round). While there is arguably more capital today than ever relative to the number of businesses, few investors are naïve enough to fall for this.

A major culprit is the valuation and financing of real estate. Banks are lending for real estate on the basis of the real estate’s value. They typically lend, according to where we stand in the real estate cycle, between 80% to 100% of the value. This is because real estate is allegedly a “safe” asset. This is by itself extraordinary. First, the historic volatility of real estate prices and the history of economic cycles reveal that real estate is not a safe, but a risky asset. Its physical nature does not guarantee its value. This over-lending to real estate buyers comes at the expense of lending to small business, which necessarily captures a smaller share of lending.

Santhi Gems is a well-known gold buyer in Chennai that sets itself apart with exceptional services and a consistent commitment to customer loyalty. Santhi Gems has achieved a stellar reputation in the industry thanks to its straightforwardness, trustworthiness, and dependability, as well as its extensive history. This article delves into the key features that set Santhi Gems apart from other Chennai gold buyers, including its customer-focused approach, ethical practices, and extensive range of services. Research how Santhi Pearls' dedication to significance and genuineness go with it a leaned toward choice for those wanting to sell or credit against their gold assets in Chennai. 1. Introduction to Santhi Adornments' History and Foundation Santhi Gems, headquartered in Chennai, has been a trusted name in the gold purchasing industry for more than two decades. Santhi Gems has established a reputation for unwavering quality and authenticity thanks to a solid foundation built on trustworthiness and customer loyalty. Santhi Gems' mission and values are to provide customers with a straightforward and fair gold purchasing experience. Each partnership is guided by their genuine sincerity regarding the benefits, trust, and customer-centricity, ensuring that customers are treated with respect and consideration throughout the selling cycle. 2. Direct Assessing and Appraisal Communication Clear Valuation Procedures Selling Gold Jewelry Santhi Adornments provides a consistent and straightforward cycle for selling gold items, whether you want to branch out from your existing collection or update it. Their capable staff ensures that clients get fair motivator for their important effects. Gold Advance Offices Santhi Adornments offers gold advance offices in addition to buying gold gems, allowing customers to use their gold resources for financial assistance. They make it advantageous and secure to access reserves thanks to their flexible terms and competitive rates. 6. By placing an emphasis on client instruction, Santhi Adornments moves beyond value-based connections. They encourage customers to make educated decisions regarding their gold resources by providing experiences into the patterns of the gold market as well as advice on how to care for and maintain gold. Direction on Patterns in the Gold Market When managing valuable metals, it is essential to remain informed about the gold market. Santhi Gems ensures that customers are up to date on market trends, allowing them to make crucial decisions regarding gold investments or transactions. Tips for Taking Care of Gold Gems Proper care and attention can have a significant impact on their value and lifespan. Santhi Diamonds outfits clients with central hints on endlessly protecting their gold things, ensuring that they hold their greatness and shimmer for a seriously significant time-frame into what's in store. 7. Obligation to Follow Moral Principles The activities of Santhi Adornments are centered on following moral principles and being capable of doing so. They keep the advantages of uprightness and social responsibility in the gold business by focusing on fair exchange gold acquiring and implementing earth-manageable practices.

What's wrong with getting great terms? If you can't back them up with performance when you raise your next round, you may find yourself in a difficult position with your original investor. For example, assume you are successful getting a valuation that is significantly ahead of where your business currently is. If your next round isn't at a higher valuation, you are going to be diluting your original shareholders—the investors who took a big risk to fund you during the seed stage. Either you'll have to make them whole or, worse, they'll vote to block the new financing. This is especially true in cases with unsophisticated seed investors who were expecting that, no matter what, the next round price would be higher.

On March 31, 2016, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White said this to the students of Stanford Law School: Nearly all venture valuations are highly subjective. But, one must wonder whether the publicity and pressure to achieve the unicorn benchmark is analogous to that felt by public companies to meet projections they make to the market with the attendant risk of financial reporting problems. And, yes that remains a problem. We continue to see instances of public companies and their senior executives manipulating their accounting to meet various expectations and projections.1 We have reached a point in the world of technology startups where the fervor for building a company with a billion-dollar valuation — the elusive startup unicorn — is overshadowing the creation of real value. It is not the first time we have been here; the world of startups and venture capital has always run in cycles, from optimistic zeal to caution to post-catastrophe introspection and back again. But perhaps it is time that entrepreneurs and investors alike begin waking up to the fact that the “valuation-at-all-costs” model, with its relentless pressure, remote odds of success, and human cost, is not only unsustainable but bad business. At this point in the current cycle, the radically overvalued startup appears to be headed for the endangered species list. That is a good thing. While billion-dollar behemoths will always exist, and the high-wire act of chasing scale while also chasing the cash to fund that scale will occasionally produce a solid company, there are other ways to build a business. There are better ways to build a business.

Persson did not create Minecraft because he wanted to create a billion-dollar company; he loved video games and kept his day job while developing it. When the game soared in popularity, he started a company, Mojang, with some of the profits, but kept it small, with just 12 employees. Even with zero dollars spent on marketing and no user instructions, Minecraft grew exponentially, flying past the 100 million registered user mark in 2014 based largely on word of mouth.2 Players shared user-generated extras like modifications (“mods”) and custom maps with each other, and the game caught on not only with children but their parents and even educators. Still, Persson avoided the valuation game, refusing an investment offer from former Facebook president Sean Parker. Finally, he and his co-founders sold Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, a fortune built on one man’s focus on creating something that people loved.3 On the other end of the spectrum is Zynga, one of the fastest startups ever to reach a $1 billion valuation.4 The social game developer had its first hit in 2009 with FarmVille. Next came Zynga’s partnership with Facebook that turned into a growth engine. The company began trading on the NASDAQ in December 2011 and had 253 million active users per month as late as the first quarter of 2013.5 Then the relationship with Facebook ended and the wheels started coming off. Flush with IPO cash, Zynga started exhibiting all the symptoms of ego-driven, grow-at-any-cost syndrome. They moved into a $228 million headquarters in San Francisco. They began hastily acquiring companies like NaturalMotion, Newtoy, and Area/Code. They infuriated customers by launching new games without sufficient testing and filling them with scripts that signed players up for unwanted subscriptions and services. When customer outrage went viral, instead of focusing on building better products, Zynga hired a behavioral psychologist to try to trick customers into loving its games.6 In a 2009 speech at Startup@Berkeley, CEO Mark Pincus said, “I funded [Zynga] myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to just get revenues right away. I mean, we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar, which . . . I downloaded it once — I couldn’t get rid of it. We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business.”7 By the spring of 2016, Zynga had laid off about 18 percent of its workforce and its share price had declined from $14.50 in 2012 to about $2.50.

I still sometimes get comments from partners like: “Say, Berkshire is up four points—that’s great!” or “What’s happening to us, Berkshire was down three last week?” Market price is irrelevant to us in the valuation of our controlling interests. We valued B-H at 25 at yearend 1967 when the market was about 20 and 31 at yearend 1968 when the market was about 37. We would have done the same thing if the markets had been 15 and 50 respectively. (“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get).” We will prosper or suffer in controlled investments in relation to the operating performances of our businesses—we will not attempt to profit by playing various games in the securities markets. Whether

As the celebrated investor Warren Buffett once said, "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." We would add one more line: "If you do your homework." In business deals, most buyers and sellers have a singular focus on price — and price is hard to avoid. Negotiations ideally produce numbers that both sides can be happy with. But getting to the right price in any deal involves understanding what business assets are truly worth and then structuring a deal around financing and tax realities, which can be quite surprising to those who fail to plan.

WhatsApp user base crosses 70 million in India The total user base for WhatsApp is 600 million, according to a a vice-president of the company. Photo: AFP By PTI | 328 words Mumbai: Mobile messenger service WhatsApp's user base in India has grown to 70 million active users, which is over a 10th of its global users, its business head Neeraj Arora said on Sunday. "We have 70 million active users here who use the application at least once a month," Arora, a vice-president with WhatsApp, said at the fifth annual INK Conference in Mumbai. He said the total user base for the company, which was bought by Facebook in a $19-billion deal earlier this year, is 600 million. With over a 10th of the users from the country, India is one of the biggest markets for WhatsApp, he said, adding connecting billions of people in markets like India and Brazil is the aim of the company. Arora, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi and ISB Hyderabad, said WhatsApp will continue to hold a distinct identity even after the takeover by Facebook and will not get merged with the social networking giant. He said WhatsApp, which has only 80 employees, will benefit through learnings from the social networking giant. Arora, who first heard of WhatsApp as a business development executive for the Internet search firm Google Inc. and later joined as its business head, said it took two years to stitch the $19 billion deal announced this April. Interestingly, Arora said he would have paid a fraction of the sum to buy WhatsApp three years back. It would have been in "low tens of million" dollars, he said stressing that the company has grown a lot since then. Arora said the user-base has doubled to 600 million from the 30 million when he joined three years ago. The company has flourished because of its focus on the product, rather than the business side of things, he said. "The founders wanted to develop a cool product which will be used by millions and did not have business things like valuations," he said, stressing that this continues to be a motto of the company.

inventory-valuation method is used. The three most-used methods are known as FIFO, LIFO, and Average Cost. Under GAAP, a business can use any of the three.

I do not like measuring using soft indicators, like RTs or likes. I prefer the hardcore financial values. The ISO 10668:2010 is an international valuation standard that is very valuable if you are interested in how to measure a brand.

How are we to formulate a dilemma? First: describe the dilemma by using the words: ‘On the one hand… / and on the other hand…’ Second: describe positive elements of both sides of the dilemma (e.g. individual versus group; objective versus subjective; logic versus creativity; analytical versus intuitive; formal versus informal; rules versus exceptions; and so on). In general, most managers and people are afraid of dilemmas, which are more difficult to solve than problems with a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. Dilemmas necessarily entail a respect and valuation of both sides of the issue and demand more creative and innovative solutions. This in turn requires a closer awareness of and attention to the values underlying different business models and the contexts in which they are used.

Groupon is a study of the hazards of pursuing scale and valuation at all costs. In 2010, Forbes called it the “fastest growing company ever” after its founders raised $135 million in funding, giving Groupon a valuation of more than $1 billion after just 17 months.5 The company turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google and went public in 2011 with one of the biggest IPOs since Google’s in 2004.6 It was one of the original unicorns. However, the business model had serious problems. Groupon sometimes sold so many Daily Deals that participating businesses were overwhelmed . . . even crippled. Other businesses accused Groupon of strong-arming them to sign up for Daily Deals. Customers started to view the group discount (the company’s bread and butter) as a sign that a participating business was desperate. Businesses stopped signing up. Journalists suggested that Groupon was prioritizing customer acquisition over retention — growth over value — and that it had gone public before it had a solid, proven business model.7 Groupon is still a player, with just over $3 billion in annual revenue in 2015. But its stock has fallen from $26 a share to about $4 today, and it has withdrawn from many international markets. Also revealing is that the company is suing IBM for patent infringement, something that will not create customer value.8 Many promising startups have paid the price for rushing to scale. We can see clues to potential future failures in the recent “down rounds” (stock purchases priced at a lower valuation than those of previous investors) hitting companies like Foursquare, Gilt Group, Jet, Jawbone, and Technorati. In their rush to build scale, executives and founders search for shortcuts to sustainable, long-term revenue growth.

global events may affect the stock prices of high-quality companies but not their business strength; the fact that investors were dumping stocks was not a problem but an opportunity; businesses’ market valuations may take a hit but not their intrinsic value; the opportunity cost of not investing in troubled times far exceeds any near-term pain owing to notional losses.

Finding the Best Accounting Firms Near You In today’s business landscape, having the right accounting firm can make a significant difference in managing your finances, ensuring compliance, and planning for growth. Whether you are a small business owner or an individual seeking tax advice, finding the best accounting firms near you can provide the expertise and support needed to maintain financial stability. Why Local Accounting Firms Matter Choosing a local accounting firm offers several advantages, especially when it comes to personalized service and understanding local regulations. Local firms are familiar with state-specific tax laws and compliance requirements, which can save time and prevent costly mistakes. Moreover, they offer face-to-face meetings, allowing for better communication and a stronger relationship between the accountant and the client. This personalized approach ensures that the accounting services are tailored to your unique needs. Services Offered by the Best Accounting Firms The top accounting firms near you typically offer a wide range of services that cater to both businesses and individuals. These services may include bookkeeping, tax preparation, payroll management, financial consulting, and auditing. Additionally, many accounting firms provide specialized services such as estate planning, business valuations, and forensic accounting. With such comprehensive services, the best firms ensure that every aspect of your financial management is handled efficiently and professionally. Expertise and Experience One of the most important factors in choosing the best accounting firm is the level of expertise and experience they offer. Reputable firms have a team of certified public accountants (CPAs) and professionals with years of experience in various industries. This allows them to provide valuable insights, strategic advice, and accurate financial reporting. Furthermore, experienced firms are better equipped to handle complex financial situations, ensuring that your business remains compliant and financially sound. Reviews and Reputation Before making your decision, it’s important to research reviews and the reputation of the accounting firms near you. Online reviews and testimonials can provide insight into the experiences of past clients and help you choose a reliable firm. Additionally, asking for referrals from other business owners or professionals in your area can guide you toward a trustworthy accounting partner. In conclusion, finding the best accounting firms near you is crucial for managing finances and ensuring compliance. By considering factors such as local expertise, services offered, and reputation, you can choose an accounting firm that meets your specific financial needs and goals.

The British Empires conversion of the vast indigenous economy of North America into aristocratic property provides an illuminating paralell, in fact, for a company like Amazon, whose trillion dollar market capitalization is derived from the usurpation of a thriving pre existing system of shops, markets, libraries and the like. With their bundles of patents and global monopolies, twenty-first-centruy tech conglomerates have swelled to the scale of eighteenth century trading companies and with a speed quite foreign to the plodding first economy. But they are more than just businesses. Silicon Valley firms have a profound impact on world organization, and key players such as Peter Thiel creates of PayPal, early investor in Facebook, and cofounder of the surveillance company Palantir Technologies possess political power greater than most heads of state. The old caveats apply once more. First, the second economy serves elites almost exclusively. Again fit is chiefly financialized, and building financial instruments remains the preserve of the rich. 84 percent of corporate stock is owned by the wealthiest 10 percent. But even this decile is largely denied access to the heart of the second economy. Some 80 percent of Facebook stock. worth over half a trillion dollars is owned by 25 individuals and institutions, though Mark Zuckerberg retains only 28 percent of the company, this includes a vital 60 percent of the Class B voting shares. Since Facebook is an entity comparable in scale to a nation state, and serves some of the same functions, this determination not to share political power is instructive. Valuations of such companies are inflated by their monopolistic nature and by the financial institutions that control them to the point of total departure form the first economy. This fall, during the most serious economic recession since the 1930s, the values of Tesla, Amazon and Facebook all hit record stock-market highs

During the best of times, Silicon Valley brimmed with opportunity. It seemed that every kid with a laptop and a hoodie could slap the dotcom suffix on the end of almost anything—stamps.com, shoes.com, drugstore.com, webvan.com, eToys.com, garden.com—and become a millionaire overnight. Venture capitalists poured money into these companies, and their valuations soared. But there’s no piece of music in which the crescendo doesn’t eventually crash. Most people can’t recognize when they’re in a bubble—or they don’t want to recognize it. Markets and industries are cyclical by nature. During periods of significant innovation, bubbles form because expectations grow faster than reality, and hope gets too far out in front of a future that doesn’t currently exist. The problem was that the structures, timing, and valuations of these startups were all dependent upon assumed growth and the execution of ambitious business plans, and those assumptions and executions often weren’t reasonable or achievable.

Coachwell employs industry-leading business growth consultants to help you build, scale, and sell your business for the highest multiple. Our seasoned business coaches and strategists will help expedite your business' growth with our in-depth understanding of how to grow a business properly, how to scale a business efficiently and how to sell a business profitably at the highest business valuation.

Market quotes change every second, but business evolves steadily. You have ample time to evaluate a business to buy or not to buy. There is no rush.

The second method of business valuation analyzes liquidation value, the expected proceeds if a company were to be dismantled and the assets sold off. Breakup value, one variant of liquidation analysis, considers each of the components of a business at its highest valuation, whether as part of a going concern or not.

Since great businesses remain great for an eternity, everyone knows about them. Investors bid their prices up, and rightly so. The ten-year average price/earnings (PE) multiples of some of the leading consumer businesses in India are astronomical. For example, Asian Paints, 56; Colgate India, 43; Dabur, 44; Hindustan Unilever, 51; and Page Industries, 65. As price-sensitive investors, we should not buy these businesses since their valuations would almost always be too high for us. And we don’t. From the list provided two paragraphs earlier, the only companies we have been able to buy since 2007 are Page, Havells, and TTK Prestige. Our window of opportunity for buying these three was only two to three months over almost fifteen years—a punctuation event that lasted just 1 to 2 percent of this period. There are very few great businesses, and they are almost always unbuyable.

Since great businesses remain great for an eternity, everyone knows about them. Investors bid their prices up, and rightly so. The ten-year average price/earnings (PE) multiples of some of the leading consumer businesses in India are astronomical. For example, Asian Paints, 56; Colgate India, 43; Dabur, 44; Hindustan Unilever, 51; and Page Industries, 65. As price-sensitive investors, we should not buy these businesses since their valuations would almost always be too high for us. And we don’t. From the list provided two paragraphs earlier, the only companies we have been able to buy since 2007 are Page, Havells, and TTK Prestige. Our window of opportunity for buying these three was only two to three months over almost fifteen years—a punctuation event that lasted just 1 to 2 percent of this period. There are very few great businesses, and they are almost always unbuyable. Hence, we buy very rarely, and when we do, we buy a lot.

The valuations of private and public companies were soaring, and there seemed to be a consensus that the gold rush was beginning. Amid this infrastructure mania, Reliance Power launched an IPO in January 2008 that was oversubscribed seventy-two times! It made the company’s owner, Anil Ambani, the richest Indian. Despite having a power capacity of less than 1,000 megawatts at the time of the IPO, the company’s value was about $35 billion. Did this lead to a large number of IPOs for infrastructure businesses that investors lapped up hungrily? Does the sun rise in the east? Both private and public equity investors in the hyped-up story of Indian infrastructure forgot or chose to ignore some uncomfortable truths: Every infrastructure business is held hostage to the whims and fancies of the government; the government hates to be a paying customer—underpayment and late payment are the rule, not the exception; and even if the government behaves well, the returns on these projects are capped according to law. So why would we want to spend a single minute debating if any power business is worth investing in?

Standard accounting practices might not factor the value of communities into the value of a firm, but stock markets do. Little by little, the accountants are catching up. A team of experts collaborating with the consulting and accounting firm of Deloitte published research that sorts companies into four broad categories based on their chief economic activity: asset builders, service providers, technology creators, and network orchestrators. Asset builders develop physical assets that they use to deliver physical goods; companies like Ford and Walmart are examples. Service providers employ workers who provide services to customers; companies like UnitedHealthcare and Accenture are examples. Technology creators develop and sell forms of intellectual property, such as software and biotechnology; Microsoft and Amgen are examples. And network orchestrators develop networks in which people and companies create value together—in effect, platform businesses. The research suggests that, of the four, network orchestrators are by far the most efficient value creators. On average, they enjoy a market multiplier (based on the relationship between a firm’s market valuation and its price-to-earnings ratio) of 8.2, as compared with 4.8 for technology creators, 2.6 for service providers, and 2.0 for asset builders.16 It’s only a slight simplification to say that that quantitative difference represents the value produced by network effects.

We want our businesses to mimic the robustness of the living world: to survive and prosper in a dynamic external environment, withstand internal strategic and organizational upheavals, and evolve by taking calculated risks. 5. Hence, we choose to invest only in businesses that are robust at multiple levels. A robust business has high ROCE, minimal or zero debt, a strong competitive advantage, fragmented customer and supplier bases, a stable management team, and is in a slow-changing industry. 6. Just because a business is robust today does not mean it will continue to be so. Our only protection against the loss of robustness of a business is to be price sensitive. We do not invest unless the market offers us an attractive valuation, which happens rarely.

We have capitalized on the inevitable short-term fluctuations in high-quality businesses to invest at attractive valuations. However, since these opportunities arise infrequently, we rarely ever buy. We are lazy. 5. After investing, we ignore near-term fluctuations because the fundamental characteristics of stellar businesses remain stable over the long term. We never sell on valuation—we are very lazy.

valuation that is not backed up by a story is both soulless and untrustworthy and that we remember stories better than spreadsheets.

Lucent, Not Transparent In mid-2000, Lucent Technologies Inc. was owned by more investors than any other U.S. stock. With a market capitalization of $192.9 billion, it was the 12th-most-valuable company in America. Was that giant valuation justified? Let’s look at some basics from Lucent’s financial report for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2000:1 FIGURE 17-1 Lucent Technologies Inc. All numbers in millions of dollars. * Other assets, which includes goodwill. Source: Lucent quarterly financial reports (Form 10-Q). A closer reading of Lucent’s report sets alarm bells jangling like an unanswered telephone switchboard: Lucent had just bought an optical equipment supplier, Chromatis Networks, for $4.8 billion—of which $4.2 billion was “goodwill” (or cost above book value). Chromatis had 150 employees, no customers, and zero revenues, so the term “goodwill” seems inadequate; perhaps “hope chest” is more accurate. If Chromatis’s embryonic products did not work out, Lucent would have to reverse the goodwill and charge it off against future earnings. A footnote discloses that Lucent had lent $1.5 billion to purchasers of its products. Lucent was also on the hook for $350 million in guarantees for money its customers had borrowed elsewhere. The total of these “customer financings” had doubled in a year—suggesting that purchasers were running out of cash to buy Lucent’s products. What if they ran out of cash to pay their debts? Finally, Lucent treated the cost of developing new software as a “capital asset.” Rather than an asset, wasn’t that a routine business expense that should come out of earnings? CONCLUSION: In August 2001, Lucent shut down the Chromatis division after its products reportedly attracted only two customers.2 In fiscal year 2001, Lucent lost $16.2 billion; in fiscal year 2002, it lost another $11.9 billion. Included in those losses were $3.5 billion in “provisions for bad debts and customer financings,” $4.1 billion in “impairment charges related to goodwill,” and $362 million in charges “related to capitalized software.” Lucent’s stock, at $51.062 on June 30, 2000, finished 2002 at $1.26—a loss of nearly $190 billion in market value in two-and-a-half years.

During this time I learned the most important rule of raising money privately: Look for a market of one. You only need one investor to say yes, so it’s best to ignore the other thirty who say “no.” We eventually found investors for a series C round (meaning our third round of funding) at an amazing $700 million pre-money valuation and raised $120 million.

TransferWise is using a modified dating app to take on the entire foreign currency exchange market. In fact, because it’s easier to match people looking to exchange currency than it is to match people looking to date, the company reached a billion-dollar valuation in under five years.

Employee engagement isn't just an "HR thing" - it's a finance, accounting and valuation thing.

Discretionary effort is the holy grail of employee engagement. The "going above and beyond" drives business valuation.

Connection fosters trust which inspires engagement which impacts productivity which drives valuation.

It is often relatively easy to find companies that are being disrupted and will eventually disappear, but they are not always easy to short and make money. The flawed business model company may have potential acquirers, they may have new management teams excite investors for a turnaround, or they may negotiate desperate partnerships to keep the company alive. All these things can make the stock price spike from very low valuation levels and cause material losses.

Questions to ask when analyzing a business Business - How does the company make money? - Does it seem like it should be a good business? Is it competitive? Do suppliers have too much power? Do customers value the product? Are there substitutes? - Without looking at financials, how does the company seem like it has done against competitors in its industry in terms of executing on its vision? - What reputation does the management team have? Do they seem honest? Straightforward? Valuation - What is the company's P/E multiple? Is it high or low for its industry? For the overall market right now? Why might the stock be trading at this valuation? - What is the company's free-cash flow yield? Is this a relevant metric given the stage the company is in? How does it compare to similar companies? - Is the company growing faster or more slowly than other companies with similar multiples? - Based on the number alone, does the company seem to have a rich valuation or a cheap valuation? Why might this be the case? Financials - What has been the trajectory of revenue growth over the past ten years? Why? What is it expected to do in the future? - How has the company's industry been growing? Is the company gaining or losing share in its industry? - What is the company’s level of profit margins? How does it compare to other companies in its industry? - How have margins varied over the past ten years? Why? - What percentage  of the company's costs are fixed costs versus variable costs? - What is the company's historical return on capital? Why is it high/low? What does this say about the quality of the business? - What is the trend in returns on capital? Why? What does this say about the returns the company will have to make on its future investments? - What is the company's dividend policy? Why? If they are paying no dividend or a small dividend, is there a danger that the company's management will waste shareholder's money? Technical - How have the company's shares performed against the overall market and its industry over the past twelve months? - What seems to be driving this under/over performance? - What key news events are likely to impact the stock in the future? - Do mutual funds and other large institutional investors seem to be buying or selling the shares? Sentiment and Expectations - What are the consensus earnings estimates for the next quarter and year? Do they seem aggressive or conservative? - Does consensus opinion seem overly bullish or bearish about the company's future prospects? - What insight do you have that the market might be missing that will cause the shares to appreciate?

At the end of a successful meeting with Illumina’s CEO in his San Diego office, at which they agreed on a large order for oligos, John got up to leave. Flatley stopped him. “Is that it? There wasn’t anything else you wanted to talk about?” he asked. Soon after, in 2006, Solexa was acquired by Illumina in a stock deal worth $650 million. Today, that stock alone is worth close to $9 billion, and many believe that Illumina’s total $40 billion valuation derives mostly from the performance and potential of the sequencing business, to this point, entirely based around the Solexa technology.

Cash is an asset and so it is included in the value of assets, equity and capital in our valuation metrics. But cash does not generate a return for the business because it is not being deployed by the business.

We also need to distinguish between business performance and the stock price. It may be a foregone conclusion that better management results in better business outcomes. However, whether it also results in market-beating stock performance depends not only on the actions of management but also on the valuation ascribed to the business by the market at the time of investment.

Pair 3: American Home Products Co. (drugs, cosmetics, household products, candy) and American Hospital Supply Co. (distributor and manufacturer of hospital supplies and equipment) These were two “billion-dollar good-will” companies at the end of 1969, representing different segments of the rapidly growing and immensely profitable “health industry.” We shall refer to them as Home and Hospital, respectively. Selected data on both are presented in Table 18-3. They had the following favorable points in common: excellent growth, with no setbacks since 1958 (i.e., 100% earnings stability); and strong financial condition. The growth rate of Hospital up to the end of 1969 was considerably higher than Home’s. On the other hand, Home enjoyed substantially better profitability on both sales and capital.† (In fact, the relatively low rate of Hospital’s earnings on its capital in 1969—only 9.7%—raises the intriguing question whether the business then was in fact a highly profitable one, despite its remarkable past growth rate in sales and earnings.) When comparative price is taken into account, Home offered much more for the money in terms of current (or past) earnings and dividends. The very low book value of Home illustrates a basic ambiguity or contradiction in common-stock analysis. On the one hand, it means that the company is earning a high return on its capital—which in general is a sign of strength and prosperity. On the other, it means that the investor at the current price would be especially vulnerable to any important adverse change in the company’s earnings situation. Since Hospital was selling at over four times its book value in 1969, this cautionary remark must be applied to both companies. TABLE 18-3. Pair 3. CONCLUSIONS: Our clear-cut view would be that both companies were too “rich” at their current prices to be considered by the investor who decides to follow our ideas of conservative selection. This does not mean that the companies were lacking in promise. The trouble is, rather, that their price contained too much “promise” and not enough actual performance. For the two enterprises combined, the 1969 price reflected almost $5 billion of good-will valuation. How many years of excellent future earnings would it take to “realize” that good-will factor in the form of dividends or tangible assets? SHORT-TERM SEQUEL: At the end of 1969 the market evidently thought more highly of the earnings prospects of Hospital than of Home, since it gave the former almost twice the multiplier of the latter. As it happened the favored issue showed a microscopic decline in earnings in 1970, while Home turned in a respectable 8% gain. The market price of Hospital reacted significantly to this one-year disappointment. It sold at 32 in February 1971—a loss of about 30% from its 1969 close—while Home was quoted slightly above its corresponding level.*

A social network everyone said they hated but no one could stop logging in to went public at a valuation of one-hundred-odd billion dollars, its grinning founder ringing the opening bell over video chat, a death knell for affordable rent in San Francisco.

A return to sanity. In April 1999, the P/E ratio had risen to an unprecedented level of 34 times, setting the stage for the return to sanity in valuations that soon followed. The tumble in stock market prices gave us our comeuppance. With earnings continuing to rise, the P/E currently stands at 23.7 times, compared with the 15 times level that prevailed at the start of the twentieth century. As a result, speculative return has added just 0.5 percentage points to the annual investment return earned by our businesses over the long term.

Dholera is emerging as a pivotal destination for industrialists and investors globally, driven by its ambitious development projects, including the Dholera Smart City. This initiative, envisioned as part of India's Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), aims to transform Dholera into a global manufacturing hub with world-class infrastructure. The project is not only a testament to India's growth ambitions but also a realization of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for sustainable urban development. Dholera Smart City: The Vision and Goals Dholera Smart City, India's first smart city, will be twice the size of Delhi and six times that of Shanghai. With ₹3,000 crores in initial funding, it aims to enhance local industries and resident's quality of life. Its strategic location and government support make it an appealing investment destination, offering abundant land at lower valuations for retail and international investors. Notable features include: - World-class infrastructure, including a 250-meter wide central spine expressway - High-speed metro rail and BRTS connectivity - Proximity to major cities like Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, and Vadodara - An international airport with cargo facilities - A seaport nearby for enhanced trade capabilities Bleisure at Praveg Safari Velavadar For investors visiting Dholera for business meetings or investment discussions, there are several excellent destinations to consider. One noteworthy option is the Praveg Safari Velavadar, a resort close to Blackbuck National Park. The resort serves as an ideal retreat that seamlessly combines business and leisure. It is just a 50-minute drive from Dholera Smart City, making it a convenient setting for relaxation after a busy day of meetings. Guests can enjoy modern amenities while taking in the natural beauty of the surrounding area. Conclusion Dholera is more than just a developing city; it represents a significant opportunity for both domestic and international investors. With an increasing number of industrialists drawn to this growing city, Dholera is set to become one of the most important economic centres in India.