Private Placement Real Estate Valuation
By: Tim Husson, Craig McCann, Edward O'Neal, and Carmen Taveras (Sep 2013)
Published in the Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis Volume 9, Issue 1, January 2014.
As a result of the Securities and Exchange Commission's relaxation of its prohibition against the marketing of private placements, investors will soon be exposed to a broad array of syndicated commercial real estate investments. Private placement commercial real estate investments are illiquid and so cannot be easily valued by reference to frequent transactions in the same asset in active markets.
We have reviewed over 200 syndicated commercial real estate private placement memorandums and find that virtually all include projected cash flows. This study explains how investors and their advisors can use these projections to develop estimates of investment value. We determine a lower bound for discount rates applicable to the cash flows derived from commercial real estate and apply the methodology to an actual commercial real estate private placement investment. Our findings suggest significant overvaluation by commercial real estate private placement investment sponsors even when using conservative estimates of discount rates.
Rethinking the Comparable Companies Valuation Method
By: Paul Godek, Craig McCann, Dan Simundza, and Carmen Taveras (Nov 2011)
This paper studies a commonly used method of valuing companies, the comparable companies method, also known as the method of multiples. We use an intuitive graphical presentation to show why the comparable companies method is arbitrary and imprecise. We then show how valuations can be significantly improved using regression analysis. Regression analysis is superior to the comparable companies method because, by using more of the available data and imposing fewer unreasonable assumptions, it is more accurate and can value more firms.
