Should investors be willing to pay higher prices for more liquid assets than for otherwise similar assets that are less liquid? If the answer is yes, how much should the premium be for liquid assets? Conversely, how do we estimate the discount for illiquid assets? In this paper, we argue that it...

It is not uncommon in private company and acquisition valuations to see large premiums attached to estimated value to reflect the 'value of control'. But what, if any, is the value of control in a firm, and if it exists, how do we go about estimating it? In this paper, we examine the ingredients...

Risk can be both a threat to a company's financial health and an opportunity to get ahead of the competition. Most analysts, when referring to risk management, focus on the threat and emphasize protecting against that threat (i.e., risk hedging). The risk associated with an investment is...

The growth of financial markets in Asia and Latin America and the allure of globalization has made the analysis and assessment of country risk a critical component of valuation in recent years. In this paper, we consider two issues. The first is the whether country risk should be considered...

As companies and investors globalize, we are increasingly faced with estimation questions about the risk associated with this globalization. When investors invest in China Mobile, Infosys or Vale, they may be rewarded with higher returns but they are also exposed to additional risk. When Siemens...

The equity risk premium is the price of risk in equity markets and is a key input in estimating costs of equity and capital in both corporate finance and valuation. Given its importance, it is surprising how haphazard the estimation of equity risk premiums remains in practice. We begin this...

The genesis of this IFC White Book lies in the teaching materials prepared for IFC's Risk Governance Workshops conducted in 20 developing countries during the 2010–2012 time period by the book's authors. The book and workshops also benefited from the contributions of Torben Andersen of...

Valuing banks, insurance companies, and investment banks has always been a daunting exercise, but the rolling market crises of the last few years have made a difficult job even more so. There are two key measurement problems that you face in valuing financial services firms. The first is that...

Many studies argue that differences in information across securities explain much of the cross-sectional variation in stock return volatility. We offer an explanation beyond that previously identified in the literature by developing a proxy for differential information. Our proxy follows from...

Most valuation models begin with a measure of accounting earnings to arrive at cash flow estimates. When using accounting earnings, we implicitly assume that the income is obtained by netting out only those expenses that are operating expenses, i.e., expenses designed to generate revenues in the...