We survey 79 private equity investors with combined AUM of over $750B about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on IRR and multiples to evaluate investments. Their LPs focus more on absolute performance. Capital structure...

A simple counterexample shows the the widely used WACC approach to value leverage firms developed by Miles and Ezzell can create an arbitrage opportunity. The only consequence to be drawn is that their WACC approach cannot be applied under the circumstances assumed by Miles and Ezzell.

We extend the WACC approach to a tax system having a firm income tax and a personal income tax of the investor as well. We use an artificial tax system incorporating most of the G-7 national tax codes as for example the classical or the imputation systems.