(Part 2) Best valuation books according to redditors

• The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Security Analysis - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• The Interpretation of Financial Statements - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports - Howard Schilit
  
  
• Applied Value Investing - Joseph Calandro
  
  
• Analysis for Financial Management - Robert Higgins
  
  
• Margin of Safety - Seth Klarman
  
  
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings - Philip Fisher
  
  
• One Up On Wall Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• Beating The Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• The Essays of Warren Buffett - Warren Buffett
  
  
• Snowball: Warren Buffett and The Business of Life - Alice Schroeder
  
  
• Buffett Beyond Value - Prem Jain
  
  
• Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• You Can Be A Stock Market Genius - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Little Book That Beats The Market - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Big Secret for the Small Investor: A New Route to Long-Term Investment Success - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator - Edwin Leferve
  
  
• Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• The Black Swan - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• Poor Charlie's Almanack - Charlie Munger
  
  
• Rediscovered Benjamin Graham - Janet Lowe
  
  
• The Theory of Investment Value - John Burr Williams
  
  
• Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger - Peter Bevelin
  
  
• Security Analysis and Business Valuation on Wall Street - Jeffrey Hooke
  
  
• Value Investing: Tools and Techniques for Intelligent Investment - James Montier
  
  
• Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• The Dark Side of Valuation - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• Financial Statements: A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports - Thomas Ittelson
  
  
• Buyout - Rick Rickertsen
  
  
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini
  
  
• Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics - Gary Belsky
  
  
• The Warren Buffett Way - Robert Hagstrom
  
  
• The Most Important Thing - Howard Marks
  
  
• Competition Demystified - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• Accounting For Value - Stephen Penman
  
  
• Distressed Debt Analysis - Stephen Moyer
  
  
• Bankruptcy Investing - Ben Branch
  
  
• The Vulture Investors - Hilary Rosenberg
  
  
• Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring - Stuart Gilson
  
  
• Distress Investing - Martin J Whitman
  
  
• The Aggressive Conservative Investor - Martin J Whitman

Valuation is like voodoo. According to the IRS, the fair market value is the most important, but in reality there are lots of factors. For example, what would the business sell for today if the owners agreed to stay on as regular full-time employees - That value might be zero if their cash flow is poor, but clearly the business is worth something (and they are not going to just give away equity based on poor income valuation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_valuation

This Forbes article does a fair summation of the issues you are dealing with:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/23/small-business-valuation-entrepreneurs-finance-zwilling.html

I would probably start with asset and income valuation and then try to put a number on the existing owner non-asset goodwill defined as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)

I would avoid, "valuation based on what the founders have already put in, i.e. a % of their day-job salaries and cash." Those are sunk costs. What I mean by that can be explained by analogy: Would you pay someone $30,000 for a rusted-out, broken down 1988 Ford Ranger because the owner put $22,000 of improvements into it over its lifetime?

The owners may feel it's worth $30,000 because of their efforts, but as I often think when I am browsing Craigslist and run across an extremely overpriced vehicle, "If there's not a couple gold bars that go along with it, I'm not paying that." The reality is that the owners are going to tend to over-value the company because of sunk costs, but you have to come to a valuation based on the current realities (future earning projections can be taken into account as well, but I would be conservative in those estimates.)

There are accountants who specialize in business valuation. I would definitely retain one to work for you and not for the company. Look for someone who is a CPA and a Certified Business Analyst or Certified Valuation Analyst or American Society of Appraisers member.

There is a book that was recommended to me (I haven't read it yet) called Valuation.

http://www.amazon.com/Valuation-Measuring-Managing-Companies-Edition/dp/0470424656/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

There is also a workbook:

http://www.amazon.com/Valuation-Workbook-Step---Step-Exercises/dp/0470424648/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1395756019&sr=8-5&keywords=valuation+measuring+and+managing+the+value+of+companies

Again, I haven't gotten around to these yet. I did notice that the first review of Valuation has a recommendation for a book: Business Valuation which that reviewer says is the best for reviewing small, private companies. The review:

http://www.amazon.com/Valuation-Measuring-Managing-Companies-Edition/product-reviews/0470424656/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

The book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047037148X/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk

Good Luck!

The art of M&A is a great A-Z on M&A. More from a buy-side perspective though.

This is great on valuation and the quantitative aspects...which is probably most useful in the finance sector.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Valuation-3rd-McKinsey-Company-Inc/dp/0471361917

Fixed Income Securities: Valuation, Risk, and Risk Management 1st Edition solution manual
https://www.amazon.com/Fixed-Income-Securities-Valuation-Management/dp/0470109106

Hi i'm looking for both test bank and solution manuals for the books below:

Working Capital Management - Application and Cases
by Sagner, James
Year 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1-118-93383-1
Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118933834/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Capital Budgeting Valuation: Financial Analysis for Today's Investment Projects
By Baker, H. Kent
Year 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0-470-56950-4
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Budgeting-Valuation-Financial-Investment/dp/0470569506/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497252887&sr=1-1&keywords=Capital+Budgeting+Valuation%3A+Financial+Analysis+for+Today%27s+Investment+Projects

I went through the process of trying to sell a failed startup a few years ago. I read this text book on "distressed assets", which is a technical term that might help you do some research on this. I can't find the exact text book, but it was something like this one.

The basic formula is:

1. Make a realistic estimate of how much money the business will make in the future... revenue and earnings if you can estimate it.
   
   
2. Figure out a good "multiple" on revenue or earnings based on the industry and other factors.
   
   
3. Calculate a "discount rate" to take into account the risk that the business never makes as much money as you think it will.
   
   So as an example, with my former business I estimated that within 2 years it could bring in $500k/year revenue. I used a 2x revenues multiple to get a $1mm valuation. With a conservative 20% chance of getting there, I asked for ~$200k.
   
   If the business is nowhere near cashflow or you don't have a good way to estimate future value... if it could make anywhere from $0 to $100mm... then I'd suggest negotiating for a large advisors % in the company just in case it becomes the next big thing.
   
   Edit: Addressing the downvotes. (1) That's not an affiliate link to Amazon. (2) I'm not addressing OP's situation exactly, but I've been thinking about this recently and thought it might be a useful real world case of how to "value a company with no income".

No, I'm not. That exact formula is taken from Equity Asset Valuation, pg 155, published by the CFA Institute. You know, the same people who dispense that pesky exam.