At least 750 words with three sources. Business Valuation
Choose a publicly traded company that is NOT a financial institution, bank, insurance company, real estate company, or similar. The company you choose should be one that you currently know very little about, and that you are pretty sure no one else in the class knows much about either.
A good way to choose a company is to go to https://finance.yahoo.com/Links to an external site.. In the search box, type in a letter or two (e.g., the first letter or two of your name). Click on the link of a few of the companies that appear and then, on the company page, click “Profile” in the row of links that appear under the stock price. Read the description and other information about the company to make sure that is in NOT a financial institution, bank, insurance company, real estate broker, or similar.
Note that your company choice is VERY IMPORTANT. This is the company that you will write about (and ultimately create a complete valuation estimate for) in the three major reports that you will write over the next few weeks in this class:
- Company Report: Industry and Economic Analysis/Outlook
- Company Report: Financial Statement and Company Risk Analysis
- Company Report: Valuation Estimates and Recommendations
Be sure to pick a company for which you can find sufficient data to complete these assignments. You will need to have the company’s two most recent annual reports (go to the company website and make sure that you can find these reports on the Investor Relations (or similar) page. Or search for “company name annual report” via an Internet search engine. If you cannot find the two most recent annual reports, choose a different company.
Also, I strongly recommend that you choose a company that made money (i.e., had positive net income) in the most recent year (and preferably in each of the past several years). For example, Lyft would be a poor choice because the company has never had a profitable year, so projecting future cash flows would be extremely difficult (if not impossible). Think of the 3 valuation approaches that you learned about this week.
Next, find and read at least two articles about your company. Then write a Discussion post about your company. Tell the class about your chosen company. Your post should include some or all of the following: company description, unique or interesting products or production processes, any interesting aspects of the company’s history, where it is located, the year it started operations, a summary of its stock performance over the past few years, management structure, and similar.
