IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ers/journl/vxivy2011i2p27-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How to Value a Seasonal Company’s Discounting Cash Flows

Author

Listed:
  • Pablo Fernandez

Abstract

The correct way of valuing seasonal companies by cash flow discounting is to use monthly data. We may use annual data, but it requires some adjustments. We show that when using annual data in the context of the adjusted present value (APV), the value of the unlevered equity (Vu) and the value of the tax shields (VTS) calculations must be adjusted. However, the debt that we have to substract to calculate the equity value does not need to be adjusted. We derive the adjustments to be made. Errors due to using annual data without doing the adjustments are big. To adjust only by using average debt and average working capital requirements does not provide a good approximation. When the inventories are a liquid commodity such as grain or seeds, it is not correct to consider all of them as working capital requirements. The excess inventories financed with debt are equivalent to a set of futures contracts. We show that not considering it undervalues the company. This paper values a company in which the seasonality is due to the purchases of raw materials: the company buys and pays all raw materials in the moth of December. We show that the equity value calculated using annual data without doing the adjustments understates the true value in a 45% if the valuation is done at the end of December, and overstates the true value in a 38% if the valuation is done at the end of November. The error of adjusting only by using average debt and average working capital requirements ranges from –17.9% to 8.5%.

Suggested Citation

  • Pablo Fernandez, 2011. "How to Value a Seasonal Company’s Discounting Cash Flows," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(2), pages 27-52.
    • Handle: RePEc:ers:journl:v:xiv:y:2011:i:2:p:27-52
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ersj.eu/repec/ers/papers/11_2_p2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fernandez, Pablo, 2004. "Shareholder value creation of microsoft and GE," IESE Research Papers D/564, IESE Business School.
    2. Fernandez, Pablo, 2004. "The value of tax shields is NOT equal to the present value of tax shields," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 145-165, July.
    3. Fernandez, Pablo, 2002. "Valuation Methods and Shareholder Value Creation," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780122538414.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fernandez, Pablo, 2003. "75 common and uncommon errors in company valuation," IESE Research Papers Db/515, IESE Business School.
    2. Pablo Fernández & Andrada Bilan, 2013. "110 Common Errors in Company Valuations," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(1), pages 33-78.
    3. Fernandez, Pablo, 2004. "Most common errors in company valuation," IESE Research Papers D/565, IESE Business School.
    4. Nangia, Vinay Kumar & Agrawal, Rajat & Reddy, K. Srinivasa, 2011. "Business Valuation: Modelling Forecasting Hurdle Rate," MPRA Paper 60420, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2011.
    5. Fernandez, Pablo, 2004. "80 common and uncommon errors in company valuation," IESE Research Papers D/550, IESE Business School.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohsen Afsharian & Anna Kryvko & Peter Reichling, 2011. "Efficiency and Its Impact on the Performance of European Commercial Banks," FEMM Working Papers 110018, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    2. Borell, Mariela & Heger, Diana, 2013. "Sources of value creation through private equity-backed mergers and acquisitions: The case of buy-and-build strategies," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-094, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Fernandez, Pablo, 2006. "The equity premium in finance and valuation textbooks," IESE Research Papers D/657, IESE Business School.
    4. Fernandez, Pablo, 2006. "The correct value of tax shields: An analysis of 23 theories," IESE Research Papers D/628, IESE Business School.
    5. Seth Armitage, 2008. "Incorporating Financing‐Related Determinants Of Value In The Discounted Cash Flow Model," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 274-298, April.
    6. Mario Massari & Francesco Roncaglio & Laura Zanetti, 2008. "On the Equivalence between the APV and the wacc Approach in a Growing Leveraged Firm," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(1), pages 152-162, January.
    7. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2009. "Splitting up value: A critical review of residual income theories," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(1), pages 1-22, October.
    8. Christian Bach, 2011. "Conservatism in Corporate Valuation," CREATES Research Papers 2011-32, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    9. Fernandez, Pablo, 2003. "Levered and unlevered Beta," IESE Research Papers D/488, IESE Business School.
    10. André Farber & Roland Gillet & Ariane Szafarz, 2005. "A general formula for the WACC," Working Papers CEB 05-012.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. H. Qi & Y. A. Xie, 2016. "Cost of capital: spot rate or forward rate?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(40), pages 3804-3811, August.
    12. Fernandez, Pablo, 2005. "Financial literature about discounted cash flow valuation," IESE Research Papers D/606, IESE Business School.
    13. G. Lumpkin & Todd Moss & David Gras & Shoko Kato & Alejandro Amezcua, 2013. "Entrepreneurial processes in social contexts: how are they different, if at all?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 761-783, April.
    14. Lucia MICHALKOVA & Tomas KLIESTIK, 2019. "The Role Of Risk In The Valuation Of Tax Shield," Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 13(1), pages 218-233, November.
    15. el Alaoui, AbdelKader & Masih, Mansur & Bacha, Obiyathulla & Asutay, Mehmet, 2014. "Leverage, Sensitivity to Market Risk and Contagion: A Multi-Country Analysis for Shari’ah(Islamic) Stock Screening," MPRA Paper 57685, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2010. "Residual income and value creation: An investigation into the lost-capital paradigm," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(2), pages 505-519, March.
    17. Laurence Booth, 2007. "Capital Cash Flows, APV and Valuation," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(1), pages 29-48, January.
    18. Chua, Choong Tze & Eun, Cheol S. & Lai, Sandy, 2007. "Corporate valuation around the world: The effects of governance, growth, and openness," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 35-56, January.
    19. Ignacio Velez-Pareja & Julian Benavides Franco, 2011. "Cost of Capital when Dividends are Deductible," Brazilian Review of Finance, Brazilian Society of Finance, vol. 9(3), pages 309-334.
    20. Rao Ramesh K. S. & Stevens Eric C, 2006. "The Firm's Cost of Capital, Its Effective Marginal Tax Rate, and the Value of the Government's Tax Claim," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-57, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Valuation of Seasonal Companies; Seasonality; Cash Flow Discounting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ers:journl:v:xiv:y:2011:i:2:p:27-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marios Agiomavritis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ersj.eu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.