The Case for the Disappearing Minority Interest Discount

When I was a young business appraiser, or well, when I was a new but not so young business appraiser, the valuation of illiquid minority interests involved developing a base value for a business and then applying two big discounts, a minority interest discount (MID), and then, a marketability discount, aka DLOM.  This post is about the first, now disappearing, minority interest discount.

Historical Background

The original levels of value chart suggested that the minority interest discount was the equivalent dollar amount as a corresponding control premium from the base marketable minority level of value.  That level is named by reference to trading of minority interests in the public securities markets.  The levels of value chart had three levels as in the following figure that I first published in 1990.

3-level lov

The chart showed relationships between three “levels” of value, the marketable minority level, which was a base level,  or as-if-freely-traded level, from which other levels were determined, a controlling interest level (control of businesses), and a nonmarketable minority level (illiquid minority interests).  The “adjustment factors” in the chart are two discounts and one premium.

  • Control Premium (CP).  The control premium was an adjustment from the marketable minority level to the control level.  Control premiums were observable in the market for change-of-control transactions involving public companies.  If a public company traded at $10 per share and sold for $14 per share, the control premium was $4 per share, or the difference between the transaction price and the pre-announcement public price.  The control premium in this example is 40% if expressed as a percentage ($14/$10 – 1).  Control premiums were analyzed and transactional data was published in predecessors to the current studies available at Business Valuation Resources.  Appraisers used control premium studies to estimate minority interest discounts.
  • Minority Interest Discount (MID).  As is clear from the levels of value chart above, the MID was a mirror image of the control premium.  In the example just noted, the control premium was $4 per share.  The corresponding MID would therefore be $4 per share.  We address the percentage MID shortly.
  • Marketability Discount (DLOM).  The marketability discount was the difference between the marketable minority value and the nonmarketable minority value.  The DLOM was observed in studies called restricted stock studies that public companies issuing restricted stock (under rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission) tended to sell the restricted shares at prices less than their otherwise identical publicly traded prices.  For example, a restricted stock offering might be for $7 per share compared to a $10 per share public price.  The dollar discount is $3 per share, or 30% of the public price for the freely traded shares.  Appraisers used restricted stock studies as a basis to estimate marketability discounts.

I’ll have to say that in the 1980s and 1990s, business appraisers were not focused too keenly on the marketable minority level of value.  Many appraisers developed indications of value for 100% of a business, and then, almost automatically, applied both minority interest and marketability discounts.

With this background, we can look at what I am calling the disappearing minority interest discount.

The Minority Interest Discount

The math of the minority interest discount was fairly straightforward.  To eliminate the control premium of 40% from the example above, we engage in a bit of basic algebra:

MID Equation

The minority interest discount calculated from the 40% control premium in our example above is 28.6% [1 – (1/(1+0.40))].  The averages of control premium studies tended to be in the 35% to 40% (or more) range, so implied minority interest discounts tended to be in the range of 25% to 30% or so.  Those were big minority interest discounts!

The reduction in value was often attributed to certain prerogatives of control, like the ability to run a company, to pick who to do business with, to determine dividend policy, and more.  The implication was that buyers of companies were paying substantial control premiums to obtain these prerogatives of control.  The minority interest discount accounted for this premium by taking it away, since minority shares lack control.

Then, of course, appraisers applied marketability discounts based on averages of restricted stock discounts in the range of 30% to 35%, plus or minus a bit, and some minority interest valuations got almost ridiculously low.  For today, we focus only on the minority interest discount.

Step 1 for the Disappearing Minority Interest Discount

In 1990, Eric Nath wrote an article for the Business Valuation Review of the American Society of Appraisers titled “Control Premiums and Minority Interest Discounts in Private Companies.” The core idea in this article was considered by many appraisers (including me at the time) as heresy.

It took some time for Nath’s novel idea to catch on, but it did begin to resonate with some appraisers (including me) during the 1990s.  Nath’s article suggested the following reasoning, which, with the benefit of hindsight I now fully endorse:

  •  The markets for public securities are massive and market participants are looking to maximize their returns from investments there.
  • In a given year, only a relatively small number of public companies are taken over by other companies.  The companies that are taken over are acquired on the basis of expected synergistic and strategic benefits, or because their trading prices are sufficiently “undervalued” that they can be purchased with the acquirer benefiting from the expected enhancement in value.
  • Given the number of large public companies, private equity investors, and other investors, if there were more opportunities where companies were trading at less than their control values, more would be taken over.  The money would find these opportunities “like sharks to blood.”  But most companies are not taken over in any year, so they must be trading at something close to their control levels.
  • Since some companies are taken over for synergistic or strategic reasons, that kind of control is a higher level of control value than that of the typical public company.

While I initially disagreed with Nath’s suggestion that typical public market pricing yielded (financial) control values, his article marked the first step on the path to the disappearing minority interest discount.

Step 2 for the Disappearing Minority Interest Discount

By the mid-1990s, many business appraisers, including me, had realized that most of the transactions in control premium studies involved strategic (or synergistic) intent, and that control premiums were paid, not for the prerogatives of control, but for the ability to enhance the cash flows of an acquisition through expected operating synergies, enhanced sales, and other expected strategic benefits.

This led to the insertion of a fourth level of value in the chart above, that of financial control, between the marketable minority level and the control level, which was relabeled as strategic control, as seen in the following chart.  I published this chart in the latter 1990s, and others published similar charts during this period.  For example, the chart below was published in 2000 in Pratt’s  (and Reilly and Schweihs) Valuing a Business Fourth Edition (with attribution) along with a similar chart they developed showing four levels of value.

4-level lov

The Control Premium (CP) on the traditional chart on the left represents a single observed premium based on change of control transactions of public companies.  That conceptual CP from the left side is broken into two components on the right side, the Financial Control Premium (FCP) and the Strategic Control Premium (SCP), because the combined premiums on the right are identical to those discussed for the left side.  In other words, CP (on left) equals (FCP + SCP) (on right).

Appraisers began to figure out that the SCP on the right side, at least, was paid for the ability to enhance cash flows of targets through synergies and strategic benefits.  This logic led to the realization that the control premium studies were measuring something other than, and more substantial than the so-called prerogatives of control (to measure the minority interest discount).  They were primarily reflecting the value of expected enhancements to cash flows.

The next conclusion was that the use of control premium studies to estimate minority interest discounts would, at the very least, overstate minority interest discounts when applied to control values that did not include the types of strategic cash flow benefits contemplated in strategic transactions.  A few appraisers and I wrote and spoke about these insights during the mid-to-latter 1990s.  The realization that observed control premiums reflected a combination of financial and strategic premiums was the second step along the path of the disappearing minority interest discount.

Step 3 for the Disappearing Minority Discount

Further evolution of our understanding led to the development of a levels of value chart that suggested that the marketable minority and financial control values were synonymous, or nearly so.  That is the logical conclusion reached based on Nath’s observations way back in 1990.  The refined levels of value chart is shown here, again in relationship to the traditional three level chart:

Refined LOV Chart

Nath’s logic is compelling and is reflected in the chart on the right side immediately above.  I introduced the refined chart in the early 2000s in speeches and articles and in the first edition of Business Valuation: An Integrated Theory, which was published in 2004, together with the conceptual math for each level of value in the context of the Gordon Model.  Travis Harms and I enhanced the Integrated Theory in the book’s second edition published in 2007.  By the way, we are fast at work on the third edition of the book.

In Business Valuation: An Integrated Theory Second Edition, we show that there is no reason for a departure between these two levels of value unless typical financial buyers:

  • Expect to run a target company better than existing owners and generate more cash flows from the same assets, or,
  • Expect to be able to grow cash flows faster over the long term than existing owners, and/or,
  • Are willing to accept a lower than market (marketable minority) rate of return, and,
  • And are willing to share these expected benefits with target owners, then...

In short, there is no reason for the financial control value to diverge very far from public pricing for public companies or the marketable minority value for private companies.

There is additional top-down pressure from potential strategic acquirers for managements and directors of public companies to run their companies effectively and for the benefit of all owners.  If they do not do so, they become more likely targets for takeover.

I’d like to think that there is a general realization of the appropriateness of this refined levels of value chart among business appraisers.  I can say that there is a growing realization among appraisers that it is more descriptive of market reality than any of the previous levels of value charts.

The interesting thing is that many appraisers actually do seem to believe there is a congruence between the financial control level of value and the marketable minority level as shown in the chart at the right above.  Virtually all appraisers believe there is a significant conceptual difference between financial control and strategic control values. However, the realization that this relationship impacts the meaning of the minority interest discount does not seem to have sunk in as deeply.

Nevertheless, the refined levels of value chart above and the growing realization of the congruence between the marketable minority and financial control levels of value mark the third step on the path of the disappearing minority interest discount.

Step 4 for the Disappearing Minority Interest Discount

We have said that there is congruence between the marketable minority and financial control levels of value.

Nevertheless, some would argue, if not further, then repeatedly.

Owners of publicly traded shares hold minority interests.  A minority interest simply can’t be worth as much as a control interest, so there should be some minority interest discount. If I can’t take a big minority interest discount, then I can’t get the low nonmarketable minority values that are appropriate for unattractive investments in illiquid interests in private companies.

The problem is that minority investors in public companies do have significant elements of control relative either to financial control owners or owners of illiquid minority interests.  Consider the following regarding minority investors in securities of publicly traded companies:

  • Each public minority investor controls when he or she invests in particular public companies
  • Each investor receives prorata distributions/dividends paid by the public companies they invest in
  • Each investor expects to receive the benefit of all reinvested earnings based on future earnings growth (and expected market price appreciation) based on those reinvestments
  • Each investor will receive a prorata share of the purchase price if and when a public company is sold
  • Each investor controls his or her holding period for every public company investment
  • Each investor can sell his or her minority interest in a public company at any time and can expect to receive the capitalized value of all future cash flows (i.e., the current market price, which represents a marketable minority/financial control value) and receive cash in three days in his or her brokerage account
  • Collectively, minority investors can express dissatisfaction with management and directors of a public company by selling their shares.  Collective selling pressure would depress market pricing, thereby making a particular public company a more attractive takeover target.  The threat of this collective power of minority shareholders of public companies acts  to encourage management and directors to run companies for the benefit of all shareholders.

Call the pressure from each public minority investor in a public company and the collective pressure they can bring as bottom-up pressure to assure that public market pricing reflects financial control value.

This logic regarding the power held by minority investors in publicly traded companies provides the fourth step along the path of the disappearing minority interest discount.

Is There a Minority Interest Discount?

It is a truism that no valuation premium or discount has any meaning unless the base to which it is applied or taken is specified.  Consider the following:

  • The base level of value to which any control premium is applied is the marketable minority (or the marketable minority/financial control) level.  Control premiums can be observed in the marketplace, as discussed above.  We also know from real world experience that strategic control buyers pay prices based on their expectations of enhanced cash flows or growth relative to stand-alone targets.  There is economic logic underlying the reasons why strategic control (or financial control) premiums are paid.
  • The base level of value from which any marketability discount is taken is the marketable minority (or the marketable minority/financial control) level.  Investors in illiquid, minority interests of private companies generally expect to receive less than all of their cash flows each year, anticipate additional risks not faced by public securities holders because of inability to sell quickly, and may suffer from suboptimal reinvestment decisions by controllers.  There is economic logic underlying the reasons why less is paid for illiquid interests than for prorata shares of business enterprises.  The phenomenon of typically lower prices for restricted (illiquid) shares of public companies relative to their freely trading counterpart shares is observable in the marketplace as an affirmation of the economics underlying the marketability discount for private companies.

The base level from which a minority interest discount would be taken has to be a control base.  That base cannot reasonably be that of strategic control, which is not observable except by exception when public companies are sold.  It is not observable at all for private companies.  The base level could be the financial control level, but if that were the case, any minority interest discount would be zero or minimal.

I am not saying here that there is no such thing as a minority interest discount.  We apply minority interest discounts to underlying net asset values when valuing illiquid interests of asset holding companies.  We do so because market evidence exists that closed-end funds holding primarily liquid investment assets tend to trade at modest discounts to their underlying net asset values.  But for operating companies, the case for the minority discount is more tenuous.

What I am saying is that there is substantial economic evidence that the minority interest discount that I grew up with in the valuation business is disappearing.  Apply a large minority discount at your own risk.  Don’t apply one by using irrelevant control premium information as a basis for developing it.  If you apply a minority interest discount, make sure that the base from which you take it is clearly specified, and be prepared to address the logic in the four steps for the disappearing discount outlined in this post.

Wrap-Up

As I mentioned, Travis Harms and I are working diligently to complete the third edition of Business Valuation: An Integrated Theory.  This post is an offshoot of those efforts.  If you would like to be notified when the new book becomes available, please send me an email at:

mercerc@mercercapital.com

As always, I welcome comments on this blog.  Unless I am mistaken, this post should generate a few comments.  I hope so!

Be well,

Chris

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

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5 thoughts on “The Case for the Disappearing Minority Interest Discount

  1. Definitely one of THE BEST blog posts you have written. Still need to address how many appraisers make (or don’t make) normalization adjustments for something like officer compensation as a way of getting to a minority or control value. I believe that you and I are both in agreement to adjust officer compensation to FMV (even when valuing a minority interest) in order to get to the proper base (minority, marketable) from which we can subtract a DLOM.

    • Rod, thanks for the kind words. I can’t address everything in a single post. Travis and I do address the issue of normalizing for owner compensation and perquisites (and non-operating assets) in Chapter 4 of Business Valuation: An Integrated Theory Second Edition. We are working hard on the third edition now and will address it again. In the meantime, I’ll do a post on the topic shortly.

  2. I found your article very interesting; it presents a valid approach to computing minority interests in a company. Generally an acquiring company will only consider target companies that it believes it can improve the target’s performance. I think that the value being paid for a target reflects the projected strategic value.

    However, I do not believe that minority owners of a private company have the same power and/or rights as shareholders in publicly traded companies. These shareholders cannot readily sell their interests. I am not sure the comparison between these shareholders and holders of restricted shares in publicly traded companies is totally valid.

    Nevertheless I think that you have presented a very interesting perspective on the methodology related to minority discounts.

    I think it is necessary to perform some empirical research on this methodology in order to support this idea. I may attempt to do some research on the methodology.

  3. Chris
    very clear post, but reading and re-reading I’ve some doubts. OK for the (potential) disappearing of the distance between “Financial Control Level” and “Marketable Minority Level” for a listed company (assuming a top level governance structure and many other market and company features that you pointed out). But what about a private company? Given the absence of a public price at any level, we use a model for valuing the shares (tipically DCF or Market Multiples). In this case, we have many arguments (that you underline) to substain a lower value for a minority stake (starting from the 100% value). Do we call this “value lack” marketability or minority discount? In your framework, the former seems the correct answer, but (apart from the wording) I deem that “minority discount” reflects in a better way the underlying substance (if you want “liabilities”) of the minority stakeholders position in a private company.
    Thanks
    Fabio

  4. Fabio, let me respond to your comment by the numbers below. You raise an important question and I hope to clarify the answer from my post on the “disappearing minority discount.” I also hope that this reply will address the comment by Jerrold Katz, as well.

    Very clear post,
    [1] Thanks!

    but reading and re-reading I’ve some doubts. OK for the (potential) disappearing of the distance between “Financial Control Level” and “Marketable Minority Level” for a listed company (assuming a top level governance structure and many other market and company features that you pointed out).
    [2] You and many others have doubts. Let me explain a bit more. Differences in levels of value occur because of differences in expectations regarding cash flow, risk and/or growth. For public companies, there is apparently sufficient congruency between expectations of public investors and financial investors for companies that most public companies do not get taken over each year. If there were a wedge created by potential enhancements in cash flows, for example, financial investors would buy in the public markets or buy public companies in order to achieve that wedge of benefit from enhanced cash flows. The best evidence that the wedge is not there is that most public companies do not get taken over.

    But what about a private company? Given the absence of a public price at any level, we use a model for valuing the shares (typically DCF or Market Multiples).
    [3] We use the same model, and we normalize cash flows of private companies to a hypothetical “well-run public company equivalent.” As such, there is generally no wedge of expected cash flow benefits for private companies when we value 100% of their equities, and therefore, no separation between the financial control and marketable minority levels in the charts above.

    In this case, we have many arguments (that you underline) to substain a lower value for a minority stake (starting from the 100% value).
    [4] This is an important point. The beginning point for valuing illiquid minority shares in private companies is the valuation of 100% of their expected cash flows.

    Do we call this value ”lack of marketability” or minority discount? In your framework, the former seems the correct answer,
    [5] Since there is no minority discount, the value differential for illiquid minority interests of private companies is the result of the marketability discount, or DLOM as some call it.

    but (apart from the wording) I deem that “minority discount” reflects in a better way the underlying substance (if you want “liabilities”) of the minority stakeholder’s position in a private company.
    [5] The value differential between an illiquid minority interest and the value of 100% of the equity of a company is created, in many cases, by:
    1. Lower expected equity cash flows to the minority owner than for the business as a whole. When we use the DCF method or the guideline public company method, we capitalize 100% of the equity cash flows of a business, which give rise to its business value. Illiquid interests seldom receive distributions of 100% of cash flows, and sometimes, no distributions. The holders of the illiquid interests can only capitalize expected cash flows to themselves. Further, we capitalize expected cash flows to minority interests only for the duration of an (estimated) expected holding period. We capitalize the business cash flows into perpetuity. Lower expected cash flows is a key source of value differentials between businesses and business interests.
    2. Greater risks associated with illiquid minority interests than for enterprises. The first risk of an illiquid interest is that of a potentially long and uncertain expected holding period. Business Valuation: An Integrated Theory, Second Edition (Mercer and Harms) discusses a number of other risks. These risks are in addition to the risks of the business enterprises themselves, so the holding period premiums are added to R, yielding R sub-HP, or the discount rate of the expected holding period. Higher risks for illiquid interests over and above business risks are a second source of value differentials between businesses and business interests.
    3. Expectations for growth. In most business appraisals, appraisers estimate growth in cash flows in the DCF method for a finite projection period, and then, estimate a long-term growth rate in developing the terminal value. For illiquid interests, a number of factors can come into play to enhance the growth rate for the illiquid interest or to detract from it. So differences in expected growth in value for illiquid interests over finite expected holding periods can increase or decrease value at the margin. However, the biggest differences are covered in 1. And 2. Above.

    It is hard for many appraisers to give up on their old friend, the minority discount. However, the integrated theory suggests that if such a discount exists, it is very small or negligible in most instances. The other discount, the marketability discount (or DLOM) does account for the lowering of the levels of value to the bottom rung, the nonmarketable minority value.

    Hope this is helpful!

    Chris