COURSE OVERVIEW:

Welcome to the Business Valuation Essentials course. This program will equip you with the skills and knowledge to understand how businesses are valued, why valuation matters at key decision points, and how different methods, assumptions, and market conditions affect the numbers you see. Throughout this course, you will learn how to interpret valuation outputs, distinguish value from price, and use valuation thinking to support buying, selling, funding, and strategic planning decisions in a practical and informed way.

This course begins by explaining why understanding business valuation is such a critical capability for businesspeople, owners, and advisors. It explores the value of understanding business valuation and the importance of valuation for businesspeople, and clarifies how value differs from price in real markets. It then examines why no two valuations are exactly alike, why valuation is not a one-time deal, and how the basic building blocks for calculating value—cash flows, risk, and growth—come together within the three major approaches to business valuation. It also considers how “rule of thumb” methods enter into valuation, when they may be useful, when they can mislead, and how intangible asset valuation extends the traditional view of what a business is really worth.

The course then examines the commercial triggers and real-world situations that drive valuation exercises. This section explains what typically triggers a business valuation and explores the common reasons for wanting a business to be valued, including transactions, restructuring, and strategic review. This section also shows how lenders make thorough valuation a necessity, what they want to see in a valuation, how to prepare for mergers and other big-money deals, and how to seek new or continued funding for an existing business using valuation evidence. It further addresses what to do if you want or need to sell a business, how to use valuation thinking for smart estate planning, how to face threats from market forces, and the benefits of having an exit plan, including when an exit valuation should be done.

Foundations in standards of value, financial adjustment, and the main valuation approaches are then explored so that you can read and question valuation work more confidently. This section explains how the tangibles and intangibles of business valuation fit together and sets out the main reasons for valuing a business in different contexts. This section also clarifies the key standards of value, including fair market value, investment value, intrinsic value, and liquidation value, and shows how to adjust or normalise financial statements so that they provide a cleaner basis for analysis. It explores common reasons for adjustments in the valuation process, explains how to fold in tangible assets, and shows how valuation conclusions are drawn when intangible assets are significant. It then introduces the basic theories of the valuation process, provides a step-by-step overview of how a valuation is conducted, and compares the asset, market, and income approaches as the three core frameworks.

The course then delves into risk, return, and the technical methods used to convert expectations about the future into present value figures. This section explains how to calculate risk conceptually and how risk relates to present value in a valuation model. This section also examines the capitalisation of future maintainable earnings method, the discounted cash flow (DCF) method, and the role of the weighted average cost of capital in discounting future cash flows. It explores the excess earnings method as a way of separating returns on tangible assets from returns on intangible assets and explains how these methods sit within the broader income approach. It also highlights the judgements involved in selecting assumptions and shows how different risk and growth views can produce different, but still defensible, value estimates.

Finally, the course addresses the growing challenge of valuation in a knowledge and intangible-asset economy, where much of the value lies beyond the balance sheet. This section explains the challenge of valuation in a knowledge economy and how markets are moving from a hard-asset to an intangible-asset focus. It explores how to think about determining the value of a company based on ideas, the importance of real, documented income to support valuation conclusions, and what strategic buyers and lenders want to see in terms of evidence and narrative. It also examines how to reach and justify intangible value, including brand valuation approaches such as the cost, market, and income approaches, why valuing intangibles is particularly important in a downturn, why customers should be recognised as key valuation drivers, and how to preserve your knowledge business for the future by planning ahead as an owner.

By the end of this course, you will be able to explain why business valuation matters, distinguish value from price, and understand why different valuers can reach different conclusions using the same business. You will know when valuations are triggered, how lenders, buyers, and sellers use valuations, and how standards of value, adjusted financials, and the main valuation approaches shape the results. Most importantly, you will be equipped to engage more confidently with valuation reports and discussions, ask informed questions about assumptions, risk, and intangibles, and use valuation thinking to support acquisitions, exits, funding decisions, and long-term planning for your own or your clients’ businesses.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:

·       The value of understanding business valuation

·       The importance of valuation for businesspeople

·       How value differs from price?

·       Why no two valuations are exactly alike?

·       Why valuation isn’t a one-time deal?

·       The basic building blocks for calculating value

·       The three major approaches to business valuation

·       How rule of thumb enters into business valuation?

·       The intangible asset valuation

·       What triggers a business valuation?

·       The common reasons for wanting a business   

·       How lenders make thorough valuation a necessity? And what they want to see?

·       How to prepare for mergers and other big-money deals?

·       How to seek new or continued funding for an existing business?

·       What to do if you want — or need — to sell a business?

·       How to do some smart estate planning?

·       How to face threats from market forces?

·       The benefits from an exit plan and when should an exit valuation be done?

·       The tangibles and intangibles of business valuation

·       The reasons for valuing a business

·       The standards of value

·       The fair market value

·       The perceptions of investment value

·       The fundamentals of intrinsic value

·       The liquidation value

·       How to adjust or normalise a financial statement?

·       The common reasons for adjustments of figures in the valuation process

·       How to fold in tangible assets?

·       How to draw valuation conclusions with intangible assets?

·       The basic theories of the valuation process

·       The step-by-step overview of the valuation process

·       The different approaches to business valuation including; the asset approach, the market approach and the income approach

·       How to calculate risk and its relationship to present value?

·       The capitalisation of future maintainable earnings method

·       The discounted cash flow (DCF) method

·       The weighted average cost of capital

·       The excess earnings method

·       The challenge of valuation in a knowledge economy

·       How to move from a hard-asset to an intangible-asset economy?

·       How to determine the value of a company based on ideas?

·       The importance of real, documented income

·       What strategic buyers and lenders want to see?

·       How to reach intangible value?

·       Brand valuation approaches including; cost approach, market approach and income approach

·       Why it’s important to value intangibles in a downturn?

·       Why recognise customers as valuation drivers?

·       Why preserve your knowledge business for the future?

·       What owners need to do for planning ahead?

COURSE DURATION:

The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.

ASSESSMENT:

A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.

CERTIFICATION:

Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.