Peter Mahler writes the New York Business Divorce blog. Last week, he published his eighth annual list, the Top Ten Business Divorce Cases for 2015. I was interested and pleased to discover that the number one case on the list was that of Chiu v. Chiu, a case in which I testified as an expert witness in 2012.
Two standard questions business appraisers ask clients in the management interview process include: What has been your dividend (or distribution) policy leading to the present? Now this is something of a trick question, because we can infer what the dividend policy has been in the past based on examining financial statements. What do you expect […]
Leveraged dividend recapitalizations and leveraged share repurchases are two corporate finance tools that are available to owners of private companies. These tools can be used to create liquidity outside the ownership of private businesses. Interestingly, as we will see, leveraged dividends and leveraged repurchases have very similar impacts on companies (assuming similar companies and same-sized transactions), and quite different impacts on the owners of the companies. In this post, we will illustrate the impact of a leveraged share repurchase and a leveraged dividend on the same company. This analysis will enable us to see the impact leverage has on the company and also, the different impacts the transactions have on owners.
The moral compass at Volkswagen was evidently not set to true north. The easy way or the cheapest solution in the short run may well be the most difficult way and the most expensive in the long run. Let the example at Volkswagen be a call for all of us to reexamine our moral compasses, both as individuals and as those compasses get translated within our companies. Some of the best decisions are made when we simply say no to the easy road.
“Is Your Business Ready for Sale?” is one of the most pressing question facing business owners today. And the question is important for advisers to businesses, since we are instrumental in asking hard questions and, indeed, have the responsibility for asking hard questions of our private company clients. At the outset of a new series of posts, let me say categorically, I am not, not, not suggesting that your business should be up for sale. Bear with me while we focus on the actual question of “Is Your Business Ready for Sale?”
After reflecting about Periscope and its potential use for me as a new social media tool, I decided to give it a try. I decided that I’d conduct my own Periscope experiment, and did my first Scope last Friday. I’ll be talking about business valuation and ownership transition, the same topics I now blog about and speak about. View a video in this post of my first scope about “Basic Business Valuation.”
Shares of La Quinta Holdings (LQ) dropped sharply upon the surprise announcement on Thursday, September 17th, after the close of trading, of the the resignation of its CEO, Wayne Goldberg. The stated reason for the resignation was “mutual agreement.” Mr. Goldberg had been CEO at La Quinta for about 15 years.
In a second announcement the same afternoon, La Quinta provided modestly lower guidance (than previous) for RevPAR (revenue per available room) and for full year adjusted EBITDA. RevPAR guidance was lowered about 1.0% from an expected increase of 4.5% to 5.5% to the range of 3.5% to 4.5%.
The reaction in the share pricing of La Quinta on Thursday was immediate and severe. After closing at $18.97 per share Wednesday afternoon, the opening price Thursday morning was $15.93 per share, or some 16% lower than the day before. Based on about 131 million shares outstanding, the drop amounted to about $400 million in lost market capitalization.
This post focuses on the earnings retention rate and its impact on growth. In many previous posts, we have discussed the concept of dividends and dividend policy. Dividends represent the portion of earnings that is available for distribution after the payment of all taxes and accounting for all net reinvestment in the business.
The idea for business owners is to get both sides of this balancing act right. It is good to reinvest for future growth. It is not good to reinvest in unproductive assets. This lowers expected returns and postpones current returns in the form of dividends.
If a business has productive reinvestment opportunities, it is good to try to grow through reinvestment. Reinvestment, as we see, lowers the potential for current returns in favor of future returns gained through growth.
Take your pick. Current returns or future returns or both. Your results will be determined by your earnings retention policy and the mirror dividend policy.
This post focuses on some of the potential analytical issues that may be appropriate for consideration, in addition to all of the normal issues in a typical valuation, when capitalizing EBITDA using the ACAPM.
You say “hockey stick projections,” I now say “orthogonal projections.”
