Inflation and valuation practice: German evidence

The objective of our paper is to analyze, how valuation practice deals with inflation especially for the terminal value, and how company value is influenced by assumptions set by practitioners. For that reason, we examine how vulnerable companies could be regarding struggles to pass on inflationary effects to their customers. We analyze the inflation rates assumed for the steady-state (terminal value) by comparing them to different estimators for the inflation rate expected at the valuation date (Survey of Professional Forecasters, inflation rates derived by comparing real and nominal rate of returns, inflation swaps). We quantify the implications of using different inflation rates for future cash flow development, terminal value and the company value at the valuation date, and compare nominal reported values with company values in a (hypothetical) world without inflation. Our sample consists of 263 valuation reports written by German auditors with valuation dates between 2000 to 2021. Most of the reports aim at determining the price per share to compensate minority shareholders during a squeeze-out. Our results question inter alia the preference for a constant company specific inflation rate of around 1% on average, and we quantify a number of value effects.