Monday, August 5, 2013

Misconceptions About Valuation

 In a 2012 Valuation Roundtable of San Francisco’s 26th Annual Seminar, keynote speaker Aswath Damodaran (Professor of Finance at the NYU Stern School of Business) presented the myths of valuation.

Myth One: A valuation is an objective search for “true” value

  • Truth: All valuations are biased. The only questions are how much and in which direction.
  • Truth: The direction and magnitude of the bias in a valuation is directly proportional to who pays the valuator and how much that valuator is paid.


Myth Two: A good valuation provides a precise estimate of value

  • Truth: There are no precise valuations.
  • Truth: The payoff to valuation is greatest when valuation is least precise.


Myth Three: The more quantitative a model, the better the valuation

  • Truth: One’s understanding of a valuation model is inversely proportional to the number of inputs required for the model.
  • Truth: Simpler valuation models do much better than complex ones.

Sources:

  1. Blog; Aswath Damodaran Explains 3 Misconceptions About Valuation
  2. Original presentation
  3. PPT Presentation

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