Valuation is what a business is worth

Business Valuation
by Tim Berry

Valuation is what a business is worth, as in “this company’s valuation is $10 million.” This would mean that a company is valued at $10 million, or worth $10 million. The term is used most often for discussions of sale or purchase of a company; it’s valuation is the price of a share times the number of shares outstanding, and the price of a share is the total valuation divided by the number of shares outstanding.

Some of the different valuation methods consider:

Rate of return
Timing and form of return
Amount of control desired
Acceptable level of risk
Perception of risk


Standard new venture valuation methods may include:

Asset-based valuation: the business is worth the sum of its assets. Not a popular valuation method for new businesses, because their future should be worth a lot more than their assets.
Book value: the book value of a company is the calculation of assets less liabilities.
Adjusted book value: this variation adjusts the assets – liabilities calculation for real value of assets, distinguished from the accounting value.
Liquidation value: what a business would yield in real money if its assets were liquidated.
Replacement value: what it would cost to replace the business if the replacement started from scratch.
Earnings Based Valuations: this is by far the most popular method for new businesses; they are valued based on future earnings.

Valuation is also important for tax reporting. Some tax-related events such as sale, purchase or gifting of shares of a company will be taxed depending on valuation.

The term is used less in discussions of major publicly traded companies, but it is essentially the same as market cap or market capitalization.

Used as a verb, valuation is the process of determining what the business’ valuation. In this context, a valuation is like an audit, and a valuation expert is a CPA or analyst who does valuations. Some CPAs are certified as valuation experts, which means the IRS is more likely to accept their valuation as part of a transaction related to taxes.

References:

Valuation formulas
Valuation before investment.
Business start-up valuation.

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