Finance Foundations: Business Valuation

Do you know the value of your business? Business valuation is critical when selling a small business, bringing on a partner, seeking additional debt or equity financing, establishing the share valuation in an initial public offering (IPO), or buying another company. In this course, accounting professors Jim and Kay Stice provide an introduction to the most important business valuation methods. They proceed from the valuation of individual assets and liabilities to the valuation of entire businesses. The course includes practice with simple valuation models, such as the use of multiples and price-to-earnings ratios, as well as the more complicated "discounted cash flow" valuation model. The final chapters include a fun and practical examination of the value of one very real business—McDonald's—and some parting words of advice.

Make sure to check out the Stice brothers' other accounting and finance courses to understand the other economic factors that impact your business.

Learning objectives
Evaluate the various approaches to business valuation.
Identify the reasons companies have a particular price-to-book ratio.
Explain why an investor would choose one investment over another when using the price-to-sales ratio.
Describe the limitations in using a discounted cash flow analysis.
Review the concept of naturally occurring balance sheet accounts.
Explore the manner in which earnings multiples are used given a scenario.