6-minute read
It’s often said that a business is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but there are several methods you can use to reach a sensible figure.
A business valuation helps you determine the market value of your business. By using a range of measures, you can understand the economic worth of a business. This is useful for entrepreneurs and small business owners looking to buy or sell a company.
Wondering how to calculate a valuation of a company? There are a few different approaches you can take, and we explain more on each of these below.
Adding up the value of all the assets in a business is a good way to work out how much a business is worth. This includes everything from stock and materials to machinery.
Stable, established businesses with a lot of tangible assets are often suited to being valued on these assets. Good examples of businesses like this are those in property and manufacturing.
Bear in mind you'll also need to subtract any debts or liabilities from your asset valuation.
To do an asset valuation, you need to start with working out the Net Book Value (NBV) of the business. These are the assets recorded in the company’s accounts.
Then, you should think about the economic reality surrounding the assets. Essentially, this means adjusting the figures according to what the assets are actually worth.
For instance, old stock depreciates in value. If there are debts that aren’t likely to be paid, knock those off. And property could have changed in value, so refine those figures, too.
Another business valuation method is looking at the value of company shares compared to earnings.
The formula to work this out is called price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio).
It’s used in the stock market world to work out if a company’s stock is valued at the right price. To work out P/E value you need to divide stock price by your business’s earnings (net profit) by share.
But you can also use this formula for your private limited company shares, if it’s not listed on the stock exchange.
This is a simple one – how much would it cost to set up a similar business to the one being valued?
Factor in everything that got the business to where it is today and the costs associated with that. Make a note of all the startup costs, then its tangible assets. How much would it cost to develop any products, build up a customer base, and recruit and train staff?
After that, think about savings you could make when setting up. If you can save money by locating the business somewhere else or by using cheaper materials, subtract that from the figure.
When you’ve taken everything into account, you’ve got your entry cost – and a valuation.
This is a complex way of valuing a business, relying on assumptions about its future. The technique is suited to mature businesses with stable, predictable cash flows – think of utilities companies.
Discounted cash flow works by estimating what future cash flow would be worth today. You can reach a valuation by adding the dividends forecast for the next 15 or so years, plus a residual value at the end of the period.
You calculate today’s value of each future cash flow using a discount rate, which accounts for the risk and time value of the money. The time value of money is based on the idea that £1 today is worth more than £1 tomorrow, because of its earning potential.
Buying and selling businesses can be more common in particular industries, so those industries might have certain rules of thumb that you can use as a guide. They’ll be based on things other than profit.
Let’s look at retail. Rules of thumb here mean that businesses are valued on factors like business turnover, how many customers it has, and its number of outlets.
It’s a good way for a buyer to value the business based on how they expect to shake things up and get operations to industry-standard.
This brings us round to what we said at the beginning – a business is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Intangible assets mentioned earlier could be considered here, with negotiation skill playing a part, too.
If the business has desirable relationships with customers or suppliers, it might be more valuable to a buyer.
If the buyer doesn’t have a stable team behind them to take the business forward, a strong management team (that won’t jump ship) could also add value.
And each prospective buyer might see different risks, variably lowering the value. The key as a business owner is to pre-empt any risks and minimise them.
Enterprise value (EV) looks at the whole company to work out a business valuation. It’s useful for investors and business analysts as it includes business equity and debt as well as market valuation.
The formula to calculate enterprise value is:
Enterprise value = market capitalisation + market value of debt – cash and equivalents
It’s a formula often used in mergers and acquisitions of companies.
EV is also used to work out EBITDA, another useful measure for understanding business financial performance.
Beyond economic reasons like buying and selling a company, company valuations can also help when:
Ultimately, you want to reach a valuation that doesn’t sell the business short. It also shouldn’t overstate what the business is actually worth.
It’s tricky to find a balance – if you’re finding the valuation easy, you might need to revisit your method. It’s a good idea to combine a couple of valuation techniques.
While there are some parts of a business you can value easily, there are always going to be intangible assets.
Beyond stock and fixed assets (like land and machinery), which are tangible and have clear value, you should also look at:
These intangible assets make it fairly difficult to reach an accurate valuation, but some of the techniques we've mentioned in this guide can help you work it out.
Business turnover is when you work out your business income over a set period of time (for example the tax year). This is the number of sales you’ve made – also known as the ‘net sales’ figure. However, this mustn’t be confused with profit, which is your earnings after deducting expenses.
Calculating turnover is a useful step to understanding the health of your business fairly quickly, but will need to be compared to gross profit and net profit to give a full picture. Read our guide on how to calculate business turnover to find out more.
As we mentioned earlier, valuing a business can help you focus on areas for improvement. There are lots of things you can do to help secure a good valuation, including:
What works for one business won’t always work for another. By giving an overview of several popular business valuation methods, though, we hope you’re closer to understanding how much your business is worth.
For more tips and resources on accounting and finance for small businesses, check out the links below:
This guide is on how to value a business in the UK. Some methods are more suited to larger companies but many will be useful for small businesses, too.
As always, with complex topics like business finance, please treat this article as a guide and get professional advice if you’re not sure about anything.
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Sam Bromley
Sam has more than 10 years of experience in writing for financial services. He specialises in illuminating complicated topics, from IR35 to ISAs, and identifying emerging trends that audiences want to know about. Sam spent five years at Simply Business, where he was Senior Copywriter.
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