Vélez-Pareja and Tham, 2003a, Vélez-Pareja and Tham, 2003b and Tham and Vélez-Pareja, 2004 showed the matching between discounted cash flow (DCF) methods and value added methods. They departed from the net operating profit less adjusted taxes NOPLAT and net income when using market values to...

Practitioners and teachers very easily break some consistency rules when doing or teaching valuation of assets. In this short and simple note we present a practical guide to call the attention upon the most frequent broken consistency rules. They have to do firstly with the consistency in the...

In cash flow valuation, on grounds of simplicity, it is common to assume that the leverage is constant over time. With constant leverage, the return to levered equity is constant and consequently, the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) applied to the Free Cash Flow is constant. However,...

In this note we analyze the tutorial based on the McKinsey methodology for valuing companies. We have found that the McKinsey methodology has one of the most common mistakes mentioned in Tham and Vélez-Pareja (2004a and b): valuing cash flows with a constant cost of capital when the leverage is...

In “Consistency in Chocolate: A Fresh Look at Copeland’s Hershey Foods & Co Case” we showed the inconsistencies regarding the assumption of constant leverage and the inconsistency in the values for equity calculated with different approaches. In this second part we show the differences in...

In the latest edition of Principles of Corporate Finance (Brealey, Myers and Allen, 2006) the authors use a finite cash flow example to illustrate the valuation procedure for using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) method with the free cash flow (FCF) and the Adjusted Present Value (APV). The two...

In theory, different valuation methods, with consistent assumptions, must give identical results. Numerical examples that purport to illustrate the theory should demonstrate the identical results. Unfortunately, in popular textbooks it is all too easy to find numerical examples that are at odds...

In the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) applied to the free cash flow (FCF), we assume that the cost of debt is the market, unsubsidized rate. With debt at the market rate and perfect capital markets, debt only creates value in the presence of taxes through the tax shield. In some cases,...

cash flow and time value of money. In this note we specify very clearly what has to be included in those cash flows and the reasons why they should be included. The main issue is related to the inclusion or exclusion of some items in the working capital and the current practice to consider that...

Practitioners and academics in valuation include changes in liquid assets (potential dividends) in the cash flows. This widespread and wrong practice is inconsistent with basic finance theory. We present economic, theoretical, and empirical arguments to support the thesis. Economic arguments...