How to do a business valuation

To find the value of your business, subtract liabilities from the assets. For example, if you have $100,000 in assets and $30,000 in liabilities, the value of your business is $70,000 ($100,000 – $30,000 = $70,000). With the asset-based method, you can find the book value of your business.

When valuing a company as a going concern, there are three main valuation methods used by industry practitioners: (1) DCF analysis, (2) comparable company analysis, and (3) precedent transactions. These are the most common methods of valuation used in investment banking.

A business valuation might include an analysis of the company’s management, its capital structure, its future earnings prospects or the market value of its assets. Common approaches to business valuation include a review of financial statements, discounting cash flow models and similar company comparisons.

There are five main methods used when conducting a property evaluation; the comparison, profits, residual, contractors and that of the investment. A property valuer can use one of more of these methods when calculating the market or rental value of a property.

The most commonly used rule of thumb is simply a percentage of the annual sales, or better yet, the last 12 months of sales/revenues. Another rule of thumb used in the Guide is a multiple of earnings. In small businesses, the multiple is used against what is termed Seller’s Discretionary Earnings (SDE).

Businesses where the owner is actively-involved typically sell for 2-3 times the annual earnings of the company. A business that earns $100,000 per year should sell for $200,000-$300,000. This is consistent with most listings on BizBuySell, a small business brokering site with thousands of companies available for sale.

Typically, valuing of business is determined by one-times sales, within a given range, and two times the sales revenue. What this means is that the valuing of the company can be between $1 million and $2 million, which depends on the selected multiple.

Price-to-earnings ratio

To do this, you simply multiply your profits by the ratio figure, which could be anything from two to 25. For example, if your net annual profits were £100,000 and comparable companies had an average P/E ratio of five, you would multiply the £100,000 by five to get the valuation of £500,000.

Businesses are usually valued at a multiple of their revenue, so a good rule of thumb is to sell your business for two or three times its annual profit.

The formula for valuing a business based on sales

To get that figure, take your total turnover to date for your current financial period. If available, add your turnover for previous financial period too. Then, divide that sum by the number of weeks in that period.

Research from Experian reveals that: 1 in 5 micro businesses across the UK operate on a turnover less than £50,000. Just over 235,000 micro businesses have a turnover of more than £1 million. The average turnover of UK micro businesses stands at £286,879.

Enterprise value multiples and equity multiples are the two categories of valuation multiples. Enterprise value multiples include the enterprise-value-to-sales ratio (EV/sales), EV/EBIT, and EV/EBITDA.

Small businesses with SDE less than $100,000 sell for multiples in a range of 1.2 to 2.4, when SDE is greater than $100,000 we expect to see the multiples in a range of 2 to 3, and as SDE reaches and exceeds roughly $500,000 we see the range extend to 2.5 to to 3.5 or more.

The multiplier for a small to midsized business will generally fall between 1 and 3‚ meaning‚ that you will multiply your earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) by either 1X‚ 2X or 3X. For larger‚ more established organizations‚ the multiplier can be 4 or higher.

Generally, the multiple used is about four to six times EBITDA. However, prospective buyers and investors will push for a lower valuation — for instance, by using an average of the company’s EBITDA over the past few years as a base number.

Market-based business valuations calculate your business’s value by comparing it to similar businesses that have previously sold. This method applies well to a business with no assets, but comes with the challenge of identifying sufficiently comparable competitors (who would presumably also have no assets.)

Multiply the Revenue

The times revenue method uses that for the valuation of the company. Take current annual revenues, multiply them by a figure such as 0.5 or 1.3, and you have the company’s value.

The accountant will likely take an inventory of all your company’s assets, creditors and debtors to ascertain the ‘paper’ value of your business and will also advise on the tax implications of any sale.

The most common way to estimate the value of a private company is to use comparable company analysis (CCA). This approach involves searching for publicly-traded companies that most closely resemble the private or target firm.

Private Company Valuation Formula:

The price/earnings (P/E) valuation methodology is one of the most widely used valuation techniques. Under this approach, the value of the company is calculated by applying an earnings multiple to the normalised or underlying profit of the business.

To calculate valuation using this method, you take the revenue of your startup and multiply it by a multiple. The multiple is negotiated between the parties based on the growth rate of the startup.