Monday, June 16, 2008

Is a DCF Valuation Pre-money or Post-money?

This question arises because of the different vocabularies of mainstream corporate finance literature and venture capital/private equity practicioners. I have seen many people believe that this is a point of negotiation between the investor and the investee. In my opinion, there is a very clear theoretical case, that the DCF approach to equity valuations yield a pre-money equity value as negative free cash flows are also discounted which reflect the impact of future dilutions in equity. Therefore no further adjustments are required.
Intuitively, though, consider what a negative free cash flow to equity implies. It indicates that the firm does not generate enough cash flows from current operations to meet its reinvestment needs. Since the free cash flow to equity is after net debt issues, the firm will have to issue new equity in years where the cash flow is negative. This expected dilution in future years will reduce the value of equity per share today. In the FCFE model, the negative free cash flows to equity in the earlier years will reduce the estimated value of equity today. Thus, the dilution effect is captured in the present value and no additional consideration is needed of new stock issues in future years and the effect on value per share today.
(Italics quoted from Aswath Damodaran - Professor of Finance at NYU-Stern, page 34-35 of the document - chapter 14, Investment Valuation, box on Negative FCFE, Equity Dilution and Value Per Share - available on www.damodaran.com).