Applied Valuation: A Pragmatic Approach

Valuation is part art and part science. While there are wrong ways to value a stock, there may be no single correct way to value a stock. Applied Valuation: A Pragmatic Approach helps to bridge theory and how valuations can be implemented in practice. It offers pragmatic solutions that are in line with valuation principles, and explains the implications of certain approaches and rules of thumb that are commonly used in practice, so the reader understands why or when such methods make sense.

Valuation is a highly case-specific exercise and slight changes in the conditions at the time of the valuation could change the approach and inputs that an analyst should be using. This book discusses how to develop the intuition and skills that would allow you to determine the appropriate or reasonable approach to take regardless of what situation may arise in the future.

Also including in-depth case studies of Walmart and Tesla, this book examines concepts like projections, discount rates, terminal value, and relative valuation to equip students, practitioners, and the general reader with a better understanding of the methods that will help them build their own framework to value businesses and analyze valuation issues.

Clifford S. Ang is an Executive Vice President in the Oakland, CA and Chicago, IL offices of Compass Lexecon, where he specializes in valuing businesses & hard-to-value assets. He has worked on hundreds of engagements involving firms across a broad-spectrum of industries concerning a wide-range of financial and economic issues, such as appraisals, complex asset pricing, solvency, lost profits, market efficiency, loss causation, and damages. Ang also teaches equity and bond valuation courses in DataCamp, an interactive learning platform for data science. He has previously taught at several universities, the last of which was at DePaul University in Chicago.