Preliminary. Comments welcome.

Equity Valuation Using Multiples

Jing Liu Anderson Graduate School of Management University of California at Los Angeles (310) 206-5861 jing.liu@anderson.ucla.edu Doron Nissim Columbia University Graduate School of Business (212) 854-4249 dn75@columbia.edu and Jacob Thomas Columbia University Graduate School of Business (212) 854-3492 jkt1@columbia.edu

January, 2000

We received helpful comments from David Aboody, Jack Hughes, Jim Ohlson, Stephen Penman, Michael Williams, and seminar participants at Columbia, Copenhagen Business School, Ohio State, and UCLA.

Equity Valuation Using Multiples

Abstract In this study we examine the valuation performance of a comprehensive list of commonly used price multiples. Our analysis indicates the following ranking: forward earnings multiples perform the best, followed by historical earnings measures, cash flow measures and book value of equity are tied for third, and sales performs the worst. Contrary to the popular view that different industries have different best multiples, we find that these overall rankings are observed consistently for all industries examined. Performance is improved by allowing for an intercept in the linear relation between price and value drivers, relative to the ratio formulation typically assumed in practice. Performance is not improved, however, by the use of more complex value drivers, such as the short cut value measures based on generic patterns for residual income growth past the forecast horizon.

Equity Valuation Using Multiples 1. Introduction In this study we examine the valuation performance of a comprehensive list of price multiples. The multiples we consider include three measures of accrual flows (sales, COMPUSTAT earnings and IBES earnings), one accrual stock measure (book value), four measures of cash flows (cash flow from operations, free cash flow, maintenance cash flow, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA)), and three measures of forward earnings (EPS1, EPS2, and EPS3: 1, 2, and 3-year out consensus analysts earnings forecasts). We also consider more complex ways to incorporate value-relevant information, including variants of the popular short cut value measures based on the residual income model. The multiple approach assumes firm value is directly proportional to some value driver, such as earnings or book value. The approach is typically applied as follows: first, identify a set of comparable firms; next, generate a multiple equal to the mean (or median) ratio of market price to the value driver for that set; and finally, generate firm value by applying that multiple to the firms value driver. Comprehensive equity valuations, which require detailed pro forma analyses and present value calculations, should in theory perform better than simple multiples. In addition to bringing less information to bear on the valuation process, the multiple approach results in relative not absolute valuation, since firm value is estimated relative to the pricing of comparable firms.1 There are, however, some concerns associated with implementing comprehensive valuations. First, the question of how best to control for risk remains largely unresolved. Although riskadjusted discount rates are used heuristically in practice, there are concerns that errors in

There is an element of relative pricing even in the case of comprehensive valuation, since stocks are valued relative to risk-free bonds. If there are concerns about the risk-free rate (the so-called risk-free rate puzzle), those concerns remain in stock valuations based on discount rates derived from risk-free rates.

assumed rates distort valuations. Second, comprehensive valuations require projections to infinity. Rather than make specific projections for all future years, simplifying assumptions (such as constant growth in free cash flows or a multiple of terminal earnings) are normally adopted to capture a terminal value, representing value beyond a horizon date. Since a large fraction of total value typically resides in the terminal value, estimates of firm value hinge substantially on the simplifying assumptions. Given these concerns about comprehensive valuations, multiples are used often in day-today valuation, either as a substitute for or as a complement to comprehensive valuations. Analyst reports, regulatory filings, valuations for estate and gift tax purposes, and the financial press frequently use multiples to value firms. When complementing comprehensive valuations, multiples are typically used to obtain terminal values and to calibrate the comprehensive valuation. The advantages of multiples, relative to comprehensive valuations, include extraordinary simplicity and the use of contemporaneous market information. While this simplicity reduces information content, it also reduces potential noise. It is not obvious a priori whether the benefits of reduced noise exceed the costs of reduced information content. Although the multiple approach bypasses explicit projections and present value calculations, it relies on the same principles underlying the more comprehensive approach: value is an increasing function of future payoffs and a decreasing function of risk. Therefore, the multiple approach should perform reasonably well if the value driver reflects future firm profitability, and the comparable group is similar to the firm being valued along various value attributes, such as growth and risk. To study the impact of selecting comparable firms from the same industry, we contrast our results obtained by using industry (as defined by IBES) comparables with results obtained when all firms in the cross-section are used as comparables.

Regardless of the role of multiples vis-a-vis comprehensive valuations, there is limited descriptive evidence on the absolute and relative performance of different multiples, and the variation across industries in that performance (e.g., Boatsman and Baskin [1981], LeClair [1990], and Alford [1992]). Recently, a number of studies have examined the role of multiples for firm valuation in specific contexts, such as tax and bankruptcy court cases and initial public offerings (e.g., Beatty, Riffe, and Thompson [1999], Gilson, Hutchkiss and Ruback [2000], Kim and Ritter [1999], and Tasker [1998]). Our study continues in the same vein, but is more comprehensive. As in most prior research, we evaluate multiples by examining the distribution of percent pricing errors: actual price less price predicted by the multiple, scaled by actual price. To eliminate in-sample bias and control for differences in the degrees of freedom across tests, we evaluate all multiples based on out of sample prediction. That is, when calculating multiples we always exclude the firm being valued. Our analysis consists of two stages. In the first stage, we use the conventional ratio representation (i.e., price doubles when the value driver doubles). In the second stage, we relax the requirement that value is directly proportional to value drivers, while retaining the assumption that the relation is linear. In essence, the second stage analysis allows for an intercept, whereas the first stage does not. In the first stage, multiples are calculated using the harmonic mean of the ratio of price to value driver (the reciprocal of the mean of the value driver-to-price ratio) for comparable firms. Although this estimator is rarely used (see Beatty, Riffe, and Thompson [1999]), it offers the desirable property that the percent pricing error is zero, on average. It is also recommended by Baker and Ruback [1999], based on detailed econometric analyses of alternative estimators. While the harmonic mean estimator results in lower pricing errors than the simple mean or

median, our ranking of the relative performance of different multiples remains unchanged when the mean or median is used instead of the harmonic mean. The following is an overview of the relative performance of different multiples: forecasted earnings perform the best, even better than more complex short cut valuations based on generic residual income growth patterns past the terminal date; among drivers derived from historical data, earnings perform better than book value; and IBES earnings (which exclude some one-time items) perform better than COMPUSTAT earnings; cash flow measures, defined in various forms, perform poorly; and sales performs the worst. When comparable firms are restricted to be from the same industry, performance improves for all multiples. We also find that the relative performance of the multiples we consider does not vary much across industries. That is, contrary to general perception, we do not find that different industries are associated with different best multiples. This finding suggests that our result is driven by the intrinsic information content of the different value drivers, rather than their ability to capture industry-specific value-relevant factors. Turning from relative performance to absolute performance, the forward earnings multiples describe actual stock prices reasonably well. For example, for 3 year out forecasted earnings or EPS3, the standard deviation of pricing error is about 29%, and approximately half the firms have absolute pricing errors less than 15%. While there are some firms with very large pricing errors, stock prices for a substantial majority of the firms are explained relatively well by simple multiples based on two or three year out forecasted earnings. The dispersion of pricing errors increases substantially for multiples based on historical drivers, such as earnings and cash

flows, and is especially large for sales multiples. For example, approximately half the firms have absolute pricing errors less than 21%, 25%, and 36% for IBES actual earnings, EBITDA, and sales, respectively. For the second stage, we estimate the intercept and slope of the price/value driver relation by minimizing the sample variance of percent valuation errors, subject to the constraint that the valuation is on average unbiased. The procedure we follow is related to that proposed by Beatty, Riffe, and Thompson [1999]. As might be expected, allowing for an intercept reduces the dispersion of valuation errors for all multiples, and the improvement observed is inversely related to the performance of that multiple in the first stage (no intercept).2 As in the first stage, we find that moving from a cross-sectional comparison group to using comparable firms within each industry further reduces pricing errors. These results suggest that the traditional ratio formulation should be replaced by a relation that allows for an intercept, especially for multiples that perform poorly in the traditional ratio formulation. We recognize, however, that if simplicity is the primary motivation to use multiples, the reduction in pricing errors may not be sufficient to compensate for the additional complexity introduced by adding an intercept. To contrast multiples with comprehensive valuations, we construct intrinsic value measures based on the residual income model, assuming generic patterns for residual income past the forecast horizon. Surprisingly, these more complex value measures perform worse than simple multiples based on forecasted earnings. We examine three alternative patterns for posthorizon residual income: (1) constant abnormal earnings past year 5, (2) zero abnormal earnings past year 5, and (3) ROE trending toward an industry median (between year 3 and year 12).

For example, for multiples based on IBES actual earnings, EBITDA, and Sales, approximately half the firms have pricing errors less than 19%, 22%, and 29%, relative to 21%, 25%, and 36%, respectively, in the ratio formulation. The improvement is much smaller for multiples that perform well in the first stage; e.g. for EPS3, approximately half the firms have pricing errors less than 14.6%, relative to 15% in the ratio formulation.

These intrinsic value measures utilize information about forward earnings at different horizons, equity book values, firm-specific discount rates, and industry profitability. Further, a structure derived from valuation theory is imposed to aggregate that information. Despite these advantages of intrinsic value measures over simple forward earnings multiples, they do not perform better than simple multiples based on forward earnings.3 Preliminary investigations designed to uncover possible causes for this result suggest that errors in terminal value proxies and estimated discount rates are partially responsible. We find that simply aggregating earnings forecasts for years 1 to 5 produces the lowest valuation errors of all multiples. We also considered two other extensions to the multiple approach (results not reported in this version).4 First, we combined two or more value drivers (e.g., Cheng and McNamara [1996]). Our results, based on a regression approach (e.g., Beatty, Riffe, and Thompson [1999]) indicate only small improvements in performance over that obtained for forward earnings. Second, we investigated conditional earnings and book value multiples. That is, rather than use the harmonic mean P/E and P/B values of comparable firms, we use a P/E (P/B) that is appropriate given the forecast earnings growth (forecast book profitability) for that firm. We first estimate the relation between forward P/E ratios and forecast earnings growth (P/B ratios and forecast return on common equity) for each industry-year, and then read off from that relation the P/E (P/B) corresponding to the earnings growth forecast (forecast ROCE) for the firm being valued. Despite the intuitive appeal of conditioning the multiple on relevant information, we were unable to document any improvement in performance. Bradshaw [1999a and 1999b] is able

Bradshaw [1999a and 1999b] observes results that are related to ours. He finds that PEG, a construct based on forward P/E ratios and forecast long-term earnings growth rates (g), explains more variation in target prices and recommendations than more rigorous valuation models. Details of those results are available from the authors upon request.

to find, however, that a more restrictive form of conditioning (P/E equals forecast growth) improves performance for his sample of firms. Our findings have a number of implications for valuation research. First, we confirm the validity of two precepts underlying the valuation role of accounting numbers: a) accruals improve the valuation properties of cash flows, and b) despite the importance of top-line revenues, its value relevance is limited until it is matched with expenses. Second, we confirm that forward-looking data (specifically, near-term forecasted earnings) contain considerably more value-relevant information than historical data. Third, we provide evidence on the signal/noise tradeoff associated with developing more complex valuation drivers. Finally, our results suggest that forward earnings multiples should be used as long as earnings forecasts are available, since they outperform the other multiples in all 68 industries we examine. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 contains a literature review; section 3 describes the methodology; section 4 describes our sample selection process; section 5 reports results and discusses implications; and section 6 concludes the paper. 2. Literature Review While most of the popular textbooks on valuation (e.g., Copeland, Koller, and Murrin [1994], Damodaran [1996]) devote considerable space to discussing multiples, there is little empirical research published on the valuation properties of multiples. Most existing papers that study multiples use a limited data set and consider only a subset of multiples, such as earnings and EBITDA. The methodology used also varies from one study to another, making it difficult to compare results from different studies. Among commonly used value drivers, earnings and cash flows have received most of the attention. Boatman and Baskin [1981] compare the valuation accuracy of P/E multiples based on

two sets of comparable firms from the same industry. They find that valuation errors are smaller when comparable firms are chosen based on similar historical earnings growth, relative to when they are chosen randomly. Alford [1992] investigates the effects of choosing comparables based on industry, size (risk), and earnings growth on the precision of valuation using P/E multiples. He finds that valuation errors decline when the industry definition used to select comparable firms is narrowed from a broad, single digit SIC code to classifications based on two and three digits, but there is no additional improvement when the four-digit classification is considered. He also finds that controlling for size and earnings growth, over and above industry controls, does not reduce valuation errors. Kaplan and Ruback [1995] examine the valuation properties of the discounted cash flow (DCF) approach in the context of highly leveraged transactions. While they conclude that DCF performs well in valuation, they find that simple EBITDA multiples result in similar valuation accuracy. Beatty, Riffe, and Thompson [1999] examine different linear combinations of value drivers derived from earnings, book value, dividends, and total assets. They derive and document the benefits of using the harmonic mean, and introduce the price-scaled regressions we use. They find the best performance is achieved by using a) weights derived from harmonic mean book and earnings multiples and b) coefficients from price-scaled regressions on earnings and book value. In a recent study, Baker and Ruback [1999] examine econometric problems in identifying industry multiples, and compare the relative performance of multiples based on EBITDA, EBIT and revenue. They provide theoretical and empirical evidence that absolute valuation errors are proportional to value. They further show that industry multiples estimated using the harmonic mean are close to minimum-variance estimates based on Monte Carlo simulations. Using the minimum-variance estimator as a benchmark, they find that the harmonic mean dominates

alternative simple estimators such as the simple mean, median, and value-weighted mean. Finally, they use the harmonic mean estimator to calculate multiples based on EBITDA, EBIT and revenue, and find that industry-adjusted EBITDA performs better than EBIT and revenue. Instead of focusing only on historical accounting numbers, Kim and Ritter [1999] add forecasted earnings to the conventional list of value drivers, which includes book value, earnings, cash flows, and sales. They investigate how initial public offering prices are set using multiples. Consistent with our results, they find that forward P/E multiples (based on forecasted earnings) dominate all other multiples in valuation accuracy, and that the next year EPS forecast (EPS2) dominates the current year EPS forecast (EPS1). It has been recognized that the use of large data sets could diminish the performance of multiples, since the researcher selects comparable firms in a mechanical way. In contrast, market participants may select comparable firms more carefully and take into account situation-specific factors not considered by researchers. Tasker [1998] examines patterns in the selection of comparable firms across industries in acquisition transactions by investment bankers and analysts. She finds the systematic use of industry-specific multiples, which is consistent with different multiples being more appropriate in different industries.5 3. Methodology In this section we describe the different value drivers considered, and the methodology used in the two stages of our analyses: estimating the price/value driver relation without and with an intercept.

Since it is not clear whether the objective of investment bankers/analysts is to achieve the most accurate valuation in terms of smallest dispersion in percent pricing errors, our results may not be directly comparable with those in Tasker [1998].

3.1 Value Drivers The following is a list of value drivers examined in this paper (details of all variables are provided in the appendix):6 Accrual stock: current book value (BV). Accrual flows: sales, COMPUSTAT earnings (CACT) and IBES earnings (IACT). Cash flows: cash flow from operations (CFO), free cash flow to debt and equity holders (FCF), maintenance cash flow (MCF, equal to free cash flows for the case when capital expenditures equal depreciation expense), and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Forward looking information: consensus one year out, two year out and three year out earnings forecasts (EPS1, EPS2 and EPS3), where eps3 = eps2 *(1 + g ) , and g is the long term eps growth forecast provided by analysts. Intrinsic pricing measure (P1*): This measure, which is based on the residual income (or abnormal earnings) valuation approach, is considered since it appears in a number of recent papers and its pricing properties are relatively better understood.7 In essence, intrinsic value equals the book value plus the present value of future abnormal earnings. For future years (beyond year +5) with no available earnings forecasts, abnormal earnings are estimated by assuming that they do not grow. Details of the implementation of P1* are discussed in the next section. All the variables listed above have been linked to value before. Accounting book value and earnings are used extensively for valuation purposes. Ohlson [1995] and Feltham and Ohlson
6

Some value drivers are not easily classified. For example, Sales, which is categorized as an accrual flow, could contain less accruals than EBITDA, which is categorized as a cash flow measure.

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[1995] build valuation models in which earnings and book value play instrumental roles. In some market inefficiency studies (e.g., Basu [1977] and Stattman [1980]), earnings and book value are assumed to represent fundamentals, and are even shown to contain value relevant information not reflected in market prices. Accruals distinguish accounting numbers from cash flows. Accounting earnings could be more value-relevant than current cash flows for at least two reasons: a) cash flows do not reflect value creation in some cases (e.g., asset purchases), and b) accruals allow managers to reflect their judgment about future prospects. However, the flexibility allowed within GAAP creates the potential for accounting numbers to be distorted, thereby reducing their value relevance. This potential for earnings management, in combination with the truism that price reflects the present value of future cash flows, has caused some to prefer cash flow multiples over multiples based on accounting numbers. To provide some empirical evidence on this debate, we consider four cash flow measures, and contrast their value-relevance with two multiples based on accounting earnings. The four cash flow measures considered are the most popular ones used in practice. Each measure removes the impact of accruals to a different extent. EBITDA adjusts pre-tax earnings to debt and equity holders for the effects of depreciation and amortization only. CFO deducts interest and tax expense from EBITDA and also deducts the net investment in working capital. FCF deducts from CFO net investments in all long-term assets, whereas MCF only deducts from CFO an investment equal to the depreciation expense for that year. For earnings-based multiples, we consider reported earnings excluding extraordinary items and discontinued operation from COMPUSTAT, and actual earnings as defined by IBES.
7

Existing literature gauges valuation properties by comparing R2 from cross-sectional regressions. We use a different metric, which we believe corrects some biases in the popular method.

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The second measure is derived from the first earnings measure by deleting some one-time items, such as write-offs and restructuring charges. To the extent that the IBES measure is a better proxy for permanent or core earnings (earnings that are expected to persist in the future), it will be linked more directly to price. Although the use of sales as a value driver has less theoretical basis, relative to earnings and cash flows, we consider it because of its wide use in certain emerging industries where earnings and cash flow are perceived to be uninformative. The potential mismatch between historical data, such as reported earnings and cash flows, and the forward-looking information captured by prices has long been recognized in the literature. Analysts forecasts of future period earnings offer a possible solution to this mismatch. Liu and Thomas [1999] find that revisions in analysts earnings forecasts and changes in interest rates explain a large portion of contemporaneous stock returns. We include EPS1 and EPS2 because these two forecasts are usually available for most firms. To incorporate the information contained in the long-term EPS growth forecast, we construct EPS3 by adding the amount implied by that growth rate to EPS2. The discounted residual income model has been widely used as a way to calculate intrinsic values. Several recent studies provide evidence that the model explains stock prices (e.g., Frankel and Lee [1998], Abarbanell and Bernard [1997], Claus and Thomas [1999]) and returns (e.g., Liu and Thomas [1999], Liu [1999]). Consistent with many prior studies, we assume zero growth in abnormal earnings past a horizon date. Although it incorporates more information than any of the simple multiples, this approach is not as detailed as a comprehensive valuation based on pro forma projections that allow for firm-specific growth in abnormal earnings beyond the horizon date.

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3.2 Traditional Multiple Valuation In the first stage of our analysis, we follow the traditional ratio representation and require that the price of firm i in year t (pit) is directly proportional to the value driver: pit = bt xit + eit (1)

where xit is the value driver of firm i in year t, bt is the multiple on the value driver and eit is the pricing error. Since our focus is on percent pricing errors (it/pit), not pricing errors, we divide equation (1) by price, to obtain the following.

1 = bt

xit eit + . pit pit

(2)

Baker and Ruback [1999] and Beatty, Riffe, and Thompson [1999] discuss the problems associated with estimating the slope using equation (1), because the residual in that equation is approximately proportional to price. When estimating t, we elected to impose the restriction that expected percent pricing errors (/p) be zero, even though an unrestricted OLS estimate for t from equation (2) offers a lower value of mean squared percent pricing error.8 Empirically, we find that our approach generates lower pricing errors for most firms, relative to an unrestricted estimate, but it generates substantially higher errors in the tails of the distribution. By restricting ourselves to unbiased pricing errors, we are in effect assigning lower weight to extreme pricing errors, relative to the

To investigate the tradeoff between bias and dispersion of pricing errors associated with our choice of a restricted regression, we investigated the distribution of pricing errors for the unrestricted case. We estimated equation (2) for comparable firms from the cross-section. (When using comparable firms from the same industry, the estimated multiples generated substantial pricing errors.) We find that the distributions of percent pricing errors for all multiples are shifted to the right substantially, relative to the distributions for the restricted case reported in the paper (our distributions tend to peak around zero pricing error). This shift to the right indicates that the multiples and predicted valuations for the unrestricted case are on average lower than ours. We find that the bias created by this shift causes greater pricing errors for the bulk of the firms not in the tails of the distribution, relative to our restricted case.

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unrestricted approach. We are also maintaining consistency with the tradition in econometrics that appears to exhibit a lexicographic preference for reduced bias over reduced dispersion. Our approach is to minimize mean squared percent pricing errors when estimating e equation (2), subject to the constraint that those errors be zero on average, i.e., Et it = 0 . p it Since t is the only parameter to be estimated in equation (2), the unbiasedness restriction alone is sufficient to determine that parameter. Applying the expectation operator to equation (2) and using the restriction, the estimate for bt is the harmonic mean of the price-value driver ratio. bt = 1 x Et it pit (3)

To eliminate in-sample bias, we estimate bt for each firm using all relevant comparable firms excluding the firm that is being valued. We predict the value of the firm by multiplying the bt estimate by the firms value driver, and then calculate the percent pricing error as follows:9 eit p - bt xit . = it pit pit (4)

The performance of multiples is evaluated by examining the dispersion of the pooled distribution of eit / pit (lower dispersion indicates better performance). 3.3 Intercept Adjusted Multiples For the second stage of our analysis, we relax the direct proportionality requirement and allow for an intercept: pit = at + bt xit + eit . (5)

Note that some studies measure the pricing error as the difference between the predicted value and price (e.g, Alford [1992]) while we measure the pricing error as the difference between price and the predicted value.

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There are many factors, besides the value driver under investigation, that affect price. The average effect on price of such omitted factors is not likely to be zero. The intercept in equation (5) captures the average effect of omitted factors and misspecifications and thus its inclusion may improve the precision of out of sample predictions. As with the simple multiple approach, we divide equation (5) by price to focus on percent pricing errors.

1 = at

1 x e + bt it + it , pit pit pit

(6)

OLS estimation of equation (6), with no restrictions, minimizes the sum of the squares of percent pricing errors, but the expected value of those errors is non-zero.10 For the reasons mentioned in section 3.2, and to maintain consistency with our estimates from the no-intercept approach, we impose the restriction that percent pricing errors be unbiased.11 That is, we seek to estimate the parameters t and t that minimize the mean squared error ( eit / pit ), subject to the restriction that the expected value of eit / pit is zero: min var ( it / pit ) = var[( pit t t xit ) / pit ] = var[1 ( t
,

e s.t. Et it = 0. p it

x 1 + t it )] pit pit

(7a) (7b)

To obtain estimates for t and t, we restate restriction (7b) as follows E( it 1 x ) = E 1 t t it = 0 pit pit pit

FG H

IJ K

(8)

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In general, this bias could be removed by allowing for an intercept. That avenue is not available, however, when the dependent variable is a constant (=1), since the intercept captures all the variation in the dependent variable, thereby making the independent variables redundant. As with equation (2), pricing errors from the unrestricted approach for equation (6) were higher for most firms (in the middle of the distribution) but were smaller in the tails.

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Solve (8) for t, and substitute into (7a) to restate the minimization problem in terms of the following regression with no intercept:

F I LM GG1 1 JJ = M x GH p E ( 1 )JK MM p p N
t it t

it it

FG x IJ OP H pK P F 1I P p E G JP H pK Q
Et
it t

(9)

where the different Et(.) represent the mean values of those expressions based on the comparable group. The estimate for t is then substituted into equation (8) to obtain an estimate for t. Those estimates are then used along with the value driver for the firm being valued to generate a valuation. 4. Sample and Data To construct the sample, we merge data from three sources: accounting numbers from COMPUSTAT; price, analyst forecasts, and actual earnings per share from IBES; and stock returns from CRSP. As of April of each year, we select a cross-section of firms based on the following criteria: (1) all COMPUSTAT value drivers for the previous year are available; (2) the fiscal year ends in December; (3) price, actual EPS, forecasted EPS for years +1 and +2, and a long term growth forecast are available in the IBES summary file; and (4) none of the price ratios is an outlier (defined as lying outside the 1% to 99% of the pooled distribution). The resulting sample includes 17,505 observations between 1981 and 1996. This sample is used for the descriptive statistics reported in Table 1. For the results reported after Table 1, we impose four additional requirements: (5) share price on the day IBES publishes summary forecasts in April is greater than or equal to $2;12 (6) monthly stock returns are available in the CRSP files

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Since our valuation model has an intercept, valuation error would be abnormally large for stocks with very low share prices.

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for at least 30 of the 60 months prior to April; (7) all multiples are positive; and (8) each industry-year set has at least five observations (industry as defined by IBES). These requirements reduce the sample to 9,658 observations. We adjust all per share numbers for stock splits and stock dividends using IBES adjustment factors. If IBES indicates that the majority of forecasts for that firm-year are on a fully diluted basis, we use IBES dilution factors to convert those numbers to a primary basis. We summarize all variable definitions in the appendix. The P1* variable is calculated using the discounted residual income model, assuming zero growth in abnormal earnings after year five:
5 E ( epst+s - kt bvt+s-1 ) Et ( epst+5 - kt bvt+4 ) + P1* = bvt + t t kt (1 + kt ) 5 (1 + kt ) s s=1

(8)

where bvt = book value per share at time t (the end of year t),

epst = earnings per share in year t, kt = the discount rate for equity at time t. The discount rate (kt) is calculated as the risk-free rate plus beta times the equity risk premium. We use the 10-year Treasury bond yield on April 1 of year t+1 as the risk-free rate and assume a constant 5% equity risk premium. We measure beta as the median beta of all firms in the same beta decile in year t. We estimate betas using monthly stock returns and valueweighted CRSP returns for the five years that end in March of year t+1 (at least 30 observations are required).13 For a subgroup of firm-years (less than 5 percent), we were able to obtain mean IBES forecasts for all years in the five-year horizon. For all other firms, with less than complete

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forecasts available between years 3 and 5, we generated forecasts by applying the mean longterm growth forecast (g) to the mean forecast for the prior year in the horizon; i.e., eps t + s = eps t + s 1 * (1 + g ) . The book values for future years, corresponding to the earnings forecasts, are determined by assuming the ex-ante clean surplus relation (ending book value in each future period equals beginning book value plus forecasted earnings less forecasted dividends). Since analyst

forecasts of future dividends are not available on IBES, we assume that the current dividend payout ratio will be maintained in the future. We measure the current dividend payout as the ratio of the indicated annual cash dividends to the earnings forecast for year t+1 (both obtained from the IBES summary file).14 To minimize biases that could be induced by extreme dividend payout ratios (caused by forecast t+1 earnings that are close to zero), we Winsorize payout ratios at 10% and 50%.15 We also calculate four variants of P1* (P2* through P5*) that we use to investigate the information/noise tradeoff among the components of P1*. Definitions for these additional variables are provided in the appendix and the results are discussed in Section 5. 5. Results 5.1 Descriptive Statistics Table 1 reports the pooled distribution of ratios of value drivers to price. The table indicates that cash flow multiples are likely to perform poorly. Free cash flow and maintenance cash flow are often negative (approximately 30% and 20% of the sample, respectively).

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We use decile median betas, since firm-specific betas are estimated with considerable error. Indicated annual dividends are four times the most recent quarters declared dividends. We use EPS1 as the deflator because it varies less than current year's earnings and is less likely to be close to zero or negative. The impact of altering the dividend payout assumptions on the results is negligible, because it has a very small impact on future book value and an even smaller impact on the computed abnormal earnings.

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Moreover, the mean of FCF/P is negative, and the mean of MCF/P is close to zero, despite the deletion of observations with extreme values (top and bottom 1%). Given the difficulty of mapping negative value drivers to positive share values, we conclude that these two value drivers are not suitable for multiple valuation purposes and drop them from the remainder of the analysis. Table 2 reports the Pearson and Spearman correlations among the ratios of value drivers to price. Most of the ratios are highly correlated, which suggests that they share a large portion of common information. The correlations among different earnings forecast ratios are especially high, generally around 90%. Interestingly, the correlation between earnings forecasts ratios and P1*/P is only about 50%, which suggests that book value and discount rate adjustments have a significant impact on the information contained in P1*. 5.2 Traditional Multiples The results of the first stage analysis, based on the traditional ratio representation (no intercept), are reported in Table 3. The results reported in Panel A use the entire cross-section of firms as comparables for computing multiples, and the results in Panel B are based on comparables selected from the same IBES industry group. Out-of-sample value predictions are made each year, and percentage valuation errors are pooled across firm-years. We report the following statistics that describe the distribution of the percent pricing errors: two measures of central tendency (mean and median) and five measures of dispersion (the standard deviation and four non-parametric dispersion measures: (i) 75%-25%, (ii) 90%-10%, (iii) 95%-5% and (iv) 99%-1%). Since we restrict the multiples to yield unbiased valuation on average, all the means are close to zero.16

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Since the valuations are done out of sample, it is natural to expect some means to deviate from zero by chance.

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The valuation errors in Panel A exhibit slight negative skewness, suggested by the fact that medians are higher than means. This implies that the multiple approach undervalues most firms by a small amount and overvalues some firms by large amounts. This occurs because the predicted values are bounded from below at zero, while they are not bounded above. A potential way to make the error distribution symmetrical is to take the log of P / P (Kaplan and Ruback [1995]). However, we choose not to follow this approach because the percent pricing errors we consider are easier to interpret. Examination of the standard deviation and the four non-parametric dispersion measures in Panel A suggests the following ranking of multiples. Forecasted earnings, as a group, exhibit the lowest dispersion of percent pricing errors. This result makes intuitive sense because earnings forecasts reflect future profitability better than historical measures. Consistent with this reasoning, performance increases with forecast horizon. The dispersion measures for EPS2 are lower than those for EPS1 (standard deviation decreases from 0.348 to 0.311, inter-quartile range decreases from 0.440 to 0.368). The improvement from EPS2 to EPS3 is less dramatic, consistent with measurement error in the long-term growth forecast used to construct EPS3. In addition to ranking the relative performance of different multiples, the results in Table 3 can also be used to infer absolute pricing errors. Specifically, halving the four non-parametric dispersion measures provides an estimate of the range of absolute pricing error within which a certain fraction of the sample lies. For example, the inter-quartile range of 0.347 for EPS3 in Panel A, indicates that approximately half the sample has an absolute pricing error less than 17%.17

17

This statement assumes the distribution is symmetric around zero. Because the distribution is not precisely symmetric around zero, the numbers we provide are approximate.

20

Forecasted earnings are followed by P1*, earnings, book value, cash flows, and sales, in decreasing order of performance. It is perhaps surprising that P1* does not perform as well as forecasted earnings, even though the information in each of the forecasted earnings is a subset of that contained in P1*. The valuation error of P1* has a standard deviation of 0.403 and interquartile range of 0.504. This result suggests that although P1* incorporates additional information such as firm specific beta, market interest rates, book value, and growth; these explicit adjustments in combination with the assumption that all firms abnormal earnings stop growing after year 5 result in a noisy valuation measure. In section 5.5, we investigate further the likely causes for the poor relative performance of P1*. Comparing the two summary accounting numbers, book value and earnings, we find that earnings clearly outperforms book value, which is consistent with street intuition. The valuation error for book value (BV) has a standard deviation of 0.536 and inter-quartile range of 0.697, compared to a standard deviation of 0.477 and inter-quartile range of 0.579 for COMPUSTAT earnings (CACT). The performance of historical earnings is further enhanced by the removal of one-time transitory components. Consistent with the results in Liu and Thomas [1999], IBES earnings (IACT) have an even lower standard deviation of 0.448 and inter-quartile range of 0.549. Contrary to the belief that Cash is King in valuation, our results show cash flows perform significantly worse than accounting earnings. For example, the valuation error of EBITDA has a standard deviation of 0.611 (28% higher than earnings) and inter-quartile range of 0.687 (19% higher than earnings). Between the two cash flow measures, CFO and EBITDA, there is little difference in performance.18
18

The free cash flow and maintenance free cash flow measures, which are excluded from this analysis because of the large proportion of negative values, exhibit even worse performance.

21

The sales multiple performs the worst. Its valuation error has a standard deviation of 0.948, and inter-quartile range of 0.761, implying that approximately 50% of the firms have valuation errors larger than 38%. This result suggests that sales do not reflect profitability until expenses have been considered. A frequent reason for using sales as a value driver is when earnings and cash flows are negative. Since we restrict our sample to firms with positive earnings and cash flows, our sample is less likely to contain firms for which the sales multiple is more likely to be used in practice. In particular, our sample is unlikely to contain Internet stocks (e.g. Hand [1999] and Trueman, Wong, and Zhang [2000]), and there are reasons to believe our results cannot be generalized to that group. To conduct the analysis using comparable firms from the same industry, we searched for a reasonable industry classification scheme. Because of the evidence that SIC codes frequently misclassify firms (Kim and Ritter [1999]), we use the industry classification provided by IBES. IBES indicate that their classification is based loosely on SIC codes, but it is also subject to detailed adjustments.19 The IBES industry classification has three levels (in increasing fineness): sector, industry, and group. We use the intermediate (industry) classification level because sectors are too broad to allow the selection of homogenous firms, and groups are too narrow to allow the inclusion of sufficient comparable firms (given the loss of observations due to our data requirements). The results reported in Panel B, which are based on comparable firms from the same IBES industry classification, exhibit improved performance over those reported in Panel A. The improvement is consistent with the joint hypothesis that (1) increased homogeneity in the valuerelevant factors omitted from the multiples results in better valuation, and (2) IBES industry

19

The IBES classification resembles the industry groupings suggested by Morgan Stanley.

22

classification identifies relatively homogeneous groups of firms.20 Generally, the improvement is larger at the center of the distributions; that is, small valuation errors became much smaller while large valuation errors do not change much. The multiples used in calculating the percent pricing errors in Panels A and B were estimated using the harmonic mean. To make our results comparable to those in previous studies (e.g., Alford [1992]) as well as to examine their robustness, we replicate Panel B using the median instead of the harmonic mean. Those results are reported in Panel C. Consistent with the evidence in Baker and Ruback [1999] and Beatty, Riffe and Thompson [1999], we find that median multiples perform worse than harmonic mean multiples. The relative performance (i.e., ranking) of the different multiples, however, remains the same. To offer a visual picture of the relative and absolute performance of different categories of multiples, we provide in Figure 1 the histograms for percent pricing errors for the following selected multiples: EPS3, P1*, IACT, EBITDA, BV and Sales. The histograms report the fraction of the sample that lies within ranges of percent pricing error that are of width equal to 10% (e.g. 0.1 to 0, 0 to 0.1, and so on). To reduce clutter, we simply draw a smooth line through the middle of the top of each histogram column, rather than provide the histograms for each of the multiples. A multiple is considered better if it has a more peaked distribution. The differences in performance across the different categories are clearly visible in Figure 1. The figure also offers a better view of the shapes of the different distributions and enables readers to find the fraction of firms within different pricing error ranges for each distribution.

20

Even if these conditions are satisfied, it is not clear that there should be an improvement. Moving from the cross-section to each industry results in a substantial decrease in sample size, and consequently the estimation is less precise. This fact is also reflected in the increase in the deviation of the sample mean of the valuation errors from zero.

23

5.3 Intercept Adjusted Multiples In this subsection, we report results based on the second stage analysis, where we allow an intercept in the relation between price and value drivers. The optimization problem in equation (7) is solved out of sample to obtain parameter estimates, and valuation errors are then calculated using these parameters. Again, the analysis is conducted for comparable firms from the entire cross-section (Table 4, Panel A) and the same industry (Panel B). As predicted, relaxing the no-intercept restriction improves the performance of all multiples. The degree of improvement is not uniform, however. Multiples that perform poorly in Panel A of Table 3 improve more than those that do well. For example, EPS3s valuation errors exhibit a small decrease in standard deviation (inter-quartile range): from 0.313 (0.347) to 0.306 (0.333), while sales valuation errors decrease from 0.948 (0.761) to 0.676 (0.615). Although the improvement in absolute performance of the multiples is not uniform, the rank order of multiples remains unchanged from Table 3 to Table 4. The improvement generated by allowing for an intercept can also be seen by comparing the results in Panel A of Table 4, based on comparable firms from the entire cross-section, with those in Panel B of Table 3, based on comparable firms from the same industry. Although simple industry multiples are better than simple cross-sectional multiples, the intercept-adjusted crosssectional multiples are better than the simple industry multiples for historical value drivers and are only slightly worse for forecasted value drivers. The best performance is achieved when we allow for an intercept and select comparable firms from the same industry (Table 4, Panel B). Comparing these results with those in Panel A of Table 3 illustrates the joint benefits of allowing for an intercept and restricting comparable firms to those in the same IBES industry. For example, the standard deviation (inter-quartile

24

range) for sales, the worst performer, improves from 0.948 (0.761) to 0.668 (0.574); and for EPS3, the best performer, the improvement is from 0.313 (0.347) to 0.289 (0.293). Consistent with the results in Table 3, the improvement in valuation by allowing for an intercept (i.e., from Panel A to Panel B) is relatively uniform across multiples. 5.4 Adjustment for Leverage Since Sales and EBITDA pertain to the value of the whole firm (enterprise value) rather than equity alone, multiples computed on the market value of equity are potentially in error. To correct for this mismatch, we repeat the analyses reported in Tables 3 and 4 for these two value drivers using enterprise value (market value of equity plus book value of debt) instead of equity value. To facilitate comparability with the results for other multiples in Tables 3 and 4, we compute percentage errors in terms of equity value. In effect, we construct multiples based on enterprise value for the two value drivers, use the comparable firm multiples to estimate each firms enterprise value, and then subtract the book value of debt to estimate equity value. Table 5 reports the results of this analysis. The first two rows in each panel provide the results without leverage adjustment and are the same as the corresponding rows in tables 3 and 4. The next two rows are based on the leverage adjustment. To our surprise, leverage adjustment does not improve the fit. Leverage-adjusted Sales performs worse in all four panels of Table 5. For EBITDA, the leverage adjustment reduces slightly the valuation errors in Panel A, increases the valuation errors in Panels B and C, and has only a marginal effect in Panel D. Although puzzling at first glance, our results are consistent with those of Alford [1992], who finds that adjusting P/EBIT multiples for differences in leverage across comparable firms decreases accuracy.

25

5.5. Potential Errors in P1* We conduct an investigation into possible reasons why the intrinsic value measure P1* does not outperform forward earnings multiples, even though it incorporates more information and imposes a structure on that information that is prescribed by theory. One possibility is that the assumption that abnormal earnings remain constant past year +5 induces errors in the terminal value. To understand better this potential source of error, we consider two alternative assumptions regarding terminal values: (1) zero abnormal earnings past year 5 (i.e., terminal value equals zero for all firms),
5 E (epst+s - kt bvt+s-1 ) , and P2* = bvt + t t s (1 + kt ) s=1

(2) ROE forecasts from year +3 trends linearly toward the industry median by year +12, and abnormal earnings exhibit zero growth thereafter,
2 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) 11 [ t ( ROEt + s ) kt ] bvt + s1 [ t ( ROEt +12 ) kt ] bvt +11 , P3* = bvt + t + t + (1 + kt ) s (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )11 s =1 s =3

where Et ( ROEt +s ) for s = 4, 5, , 12 is estimated using a linear interpolation to the industry median ROE. The industry median ROE is calculated as a moving median of the past ten years ROE of all firms in the industry. To eliminate outliers, industry median ROEs are Winsorized to lie between the risk free rate and 20%.21 Results are reported in Table 6. As with Table 5, we report the results for all four combinations: two sets of comparable firms (entire cross section and industry) and two value relations (with and without an intercept). Because the results in all four Panels of Tale 6 are similar, we discuss only the results in Panel A. P2* produces essentially the same dispersion in

21

This measure has been proposed by Gebhardt, Lee and Swaminathan [1999].

26

valuation errors as that produced by P1*. This suggests that the terminal value proxy in P1* contains considerable error, since dropping the terminal value altogether in P2* does not affect the fit adversely. We turn next to the improvement offered by the more complex terminal value proxy incorporated in P3*. This intrinsic value measure allows for firm-specific patterns of profitability between years +3 and +12, and industry-specific terminal profitability after year +12. Despite the intuitive appeal of the adjustment proposed in P3*, our results indicate that the percent pricing errors are actually higher than those observed for P1* and P2*. Again, the additional information that is incorporated in P3*, regarding the tendency for firms in different industries to revert to industry means, appears to be negated by increased measurement error. 5.6 Simple Aggregation of Earnings Forecast Information Since the intrinsic value approach for incorporating the information in the different EPS forecasts fails to improve on simple multiples based on specific EPS forecasts, we examine two alternative, simpler, ways of incorporating the information in the different earnings forecasts. The first measure is based on the sum of the EPS forecasts for the next five years, P4* = Et ( epst+s ) .22 The second measure attempts to control heuristically for the timing and t
5 s=1

risk of the different earnings numbers by discounting the EPS forecasts for the next five years,
5 E (epst+s ) . P5* = t t s s=1 (1 + kt )

The standard deviation (inter-quartile range) of valuation errors for P4* is 0.309 (0.338), which is lower than that for P1*. In fact, P4* performs better than any of the other multiples considered so far, including the three forward earnings multiples (EPS1-EPS3). This

27

improvement suggests that a simple aggregation of the earnings forecasts at different horizons allows us to incorporate the information in those forecasts, whereas the structure imposed by computing P* adds measurement error. The similarity of the valuation error dispersions in the fourth row (P4*) and fifth row (P5*) indicates that our simple control for the timing and risk of future earnings does not improve the valuation. 5.7 Ranking Multiples in Each Industry Given our focus on understanding the underlying information content of the different multiples, our focus has been on overall patterns, with firms pooled across industries. It has been suggested, however, that different multiples work best in different industries. For example, Tasker [1998] reports that investment bankers and analysts appear to use preferred multiples in each industry. Therefore, we determine the extent to which the relative rank of different multiples, based on the dispersion of valuation errors within that industry, varies across different industries. Although we recognize that our search is unlikely to offer conclusive results, since we do not pick comparable firms with the same skill and attention as others do in different contexts, we wish to offer some general results. Since investment professionals use simple multiples (no intercept) and select comparable firms from the same industry, we use the same approach here. Then we pool the valuation results over years for each industry and rank multiples by the standard deviation of valuation errors within each industry. Table 7 reports the results for the 68 industries we analyze. The ranking goes from 0 (best) to 11 (worst). We also report summary statistics of the rankings at the bottom of the table.

22

We thank Jim Ohlson for suggesting this value driver.

28

The overall result shows remarkable consistency across all industries. In almost all industries, forecasted earnings perform the best, while Sales performs the worst. This result, which is consistent with the results in Kim and Ritter [1999], suggests that the information contained in forward looking value drivers captures a considerable fraction of value, and this feature is common to all industries. Turning to the other value drivers, earnings perform better than book value and cash flows in most industries. Book value performs well in certain industries in the finance sector, the energy sector (oil and gas), forest products and gas utilities. Perhaps, accounting practices in these industries cause book values to be related to market values within these industries in a more consistent manner. 6. Conclusions In this study we have examined the valuation properties of a comprehensive list of multiples. We consider both the commonly used multiple approach, which assumes direct proportionality between price and value driver, and a less restrictive approach that allows for an intercept. To identify the importance of selecting comparable firms from the same industry, we also report results based on the comparable group including all firms in the cross-section. Our results show the following rank ordering of multiples (from more accurate to less accurate): forecasted earnings, earnings, cash flows tied with book value, and sales. The ranking is robust to the use of different statistical methods, and similar results are obtained within individual industries. We show that both the industry adjustment (selecting comparables from the same industry) and the intercept adjustment (allowing for an intercept in the price/value driver relation) improves the valuation properties of all multiples. While the industry adjustment is commonly used, the intercept adjustment is not. We speculate that multiples are used primarily

29

because they are simple to comprehend and communicate and the additional complexity associated with including an intercept exceeds the benefits of improved fit. Our results are consistent with intuition regarding the information in different value drivers. For example, future information reflects value better than historical information, accounting accruals add value-relevant information to cash flows, and profitability can be better measured when revenue is matched with expenses. Some results in this paper are surprising, however. For example, a discounted residual income analysis which explicitly forecasts terminal value and adjusts for risk performs worse than simple multiples based on earnings forecasts. And adjusting for leverage does not improve the valuation properties of EBITDA and Sales. We investigate these results further and feel that these results indicate the trade-off that exists between signal and noise when more complex but theoretically correct structures are imposed. We recognize that our study is designed to provide an overview of aggregate patterns, and thus we may have missed more subtle relationships that are only apparent in small sample studies. We note in conclusion that our analysis assumes that market prices are efficient, and we evaluate multiples based on their ability to mimic market valuations. If market prices vary systematically from fundamental or intrinsic value, we may need to revise our conclusions about the relative and absolute performance of the different multiples considered here. To examine this possibility, we are currently investigating the ability of these multiples to predict future abnormal returns. The results in this paper are valid if no relation is observed between future abnormal returns and pricing errors from different multiples.

30

APPENDIX This appendix describes how the variables are constructed. All the value drivers are adjusted for changes in number of shares. BV: SALES: CACT: IACT: book value of equity, COMPUSTAT item #60 item #12 COMPUSTAT earnings (EPS excluding extraordinary items), item #58 IBES actual earnings

EBITDA: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, item #13 CFO: cash flow from operations, measured as EBITDA minus the total of interest expense (#15), tax expense (#16) and the net change in working capital (#236) FCF: MCF: EPS1: EPS2: EPS3: free cash flow, measured as CFO minus net investment (#107 - #128 - #113 + #109) maintenance cash flow, measured as CFO minus depreciation expense (#125) IBES one year out earnings forecast IBES two year out earnings forecast IBES three year out earnings forecast, measured as EPS2*(1+g), where g is IBES long term growth forecast The P* measures:
5 E ( epst+s - kt bvt+s-1 ) Et ( epst+5 - kt bvt+4 ) + P1* = bvt + t t s (1 + kt ) kt (1 + kt ) 5 s=1 5 E (epst +s - kt bvt +s-1 ) P 2* = bvt + t t s (1 + kt ) s=1

31

2 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) 11 [ t ( ROEt + s ) kt ] bvt + s1 [ t ( ROEt +12 ) kt ] bvt +11 P3* = bvt + t + t + kt (1 + kt )11 (1 + kt ) s (1 + kt ) s s =1 s =3

P4* = Et ( epst+s ) t
5 s=1 5 E (epst+s ) P5* = t t s s=1 (1 + kt )

The variables used in the P* calculations are obtained in the following way: The discount rate (kt) is calculated as the risk-free rate plus beta times the equity risk premium. We use the 10-year Treasury bond yield on April 1 of year t+1 as the risk-free rate and assume a constant 5% equity risk premium. We measure beta as the median beta of all firms in the same beta decile in year t. We estimate betas using monthly stock returns and valueweighted CRSP returns for the five years that end in March of year t+1 (at least 30 observations are required). For a subgroup of firm-years (less than 5 percent), we were able to obtain mean IBES forecasts for all years in the five-year horizon. For all other firms, with less than complete forecasts available between years 3 and 5, we generated forecasts by applying the mean longterm growth forecast (g) to the mean forecast for the prior year in the horizon; i.e., eps t + s = eps t + s 1 * (1 + g ) . The book values for future years, corresponding to the earnings forecasts, are determined by assuming the ex-ante clean surplus relation (ending book value in each future period equals beginning book value plus forecasted earnings less forecasted dividends). Since analyst

forecasts of future dividends are not available on IBES, we assume that the current dividend payout ratio will be maintained in the future. We measure the current dividend payout as the ratio of the indicated annual cash dividends to the earnings forecast for year t+1 (both obtained

32

from the IBES summary file). To minimize biases that could be induced by extreme dividend payout ratios (caused by forecast t+1 earnings that are close to zero), we Winsorize payout ratios at 10% and 50%. In the calculation of P3* , Et ( ROEt +s ) for s = 4, 5, , 12 are forecasted using a linear t interpolation to the industry median ROE. The industry median ROE is calculated as a moving median of the past ten years ROE of all firms in the industry. To eliminate outliers, industry median ROEs are Winsorized at the risk free rate and 20%.

33

Table 1 Distribution of Value Driver to Price Ratios

The variables are defined as follows: P is stock price; BV is book value of equity; MCF is maintenance cash flow (equivalent to free cash flow when depreciation expense equals capital expenditure); FCF is free cash flow to debt and equity holders; CFO is cash flow from operations; EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization; CACT is COMPUSTAT earnings before extraordinary items; IACT is IBES actual earnings; EPS1 and EPS2 are one year out and two year out earnings forecasts; EPS3=EPS2*(1+g), where g is the growth forecast; and TP is enterprise value (price + debt). All totals are deflated by the number of shares outstanding at the end of the year.
5 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) t (epst +5 kt bvt +4 ) , P1* = bvt + t t + (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )5 s =1 5 E (epst +s - kt bvt +s-1 ) , P 2* = bvt + t t s (1 + kt ) s=1

2 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) 11 [ t ( ROEt + s ) kt ] bvt + s1 [ t ( ROEt +12 ) kt ] bvt +11 , P3* = bvt + t + t + (1 + kt ) s (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )11 s =1 s =3 where Et ( ROEt +s ) for s = 4, 5, , 12 is forecasted using a linear interpolation to the industry median ROE. The

industry median ROE is calculated as a moving median of the past ten years ROE of all firms in the industry. To eliminate outliers, industry median ROEs are Winsorized at the risk free rate and 20%.
5 5 E (epst+s ) . P4* = Et ( epst+s ) , and P5* = t t t s s=1 s=1 (1 + kt )

Sample is trimmed at 1% and 99% for each ratio (excluding the P* ratio) using the pooled distribution. Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 17,505. Mean BV/P MCF/P FCF/P CFO/P Ebitda/P CACT/P IACT/P Sales/P EPS1/P EPS2/P EPS3/P P1*/P P2*/P P3*/P P4*/P P5*/P Ebitda/TP Sales/TP 0.549 0.034 -0.016 0.102 0.179 0.044 0.051 1.387 0.072 0.090 0.106 0.693 0.607 0.790 0.536 0.354 0.123 0.973 SD 0.354 0.079 0.161 0.094 0.142 0.084 0.067 1.475 0.041 0.039 0.043 0.308 0.251 0.466 0.217 0.131 0.075 0.891 1% 0.014 -0.281 -0.675 -0.151 -0.090 -0.302 -0.212 0.054 -0.055 0.010 0.025 0.176 0.161 0.161 0.124 0.076 -0.081 0.052 5% 0.121 -0.092 -0.274 -0.021 0.015 -0.077 -0.041 0.159 0.016 0.036 0.049 0.299 0.258 0.273 0.248 0.169 0.014 0.141 10% 0.178 -0.035 -0.154 0.017 0.044 -0.015 0.006 0.254 0.030 0.048 0.060 0.370 0.318 0.350 0.308 0.210 0.041 0.222 25% 0.300 0.016 -0.041 0.053 0.091 0.029 0.034 0.509 0.050 0.066 0.078 0.492 0.424 0.494 0.395 0.270 0.081 0.408 50% 0.483 0.043 0.019 0.093 0.152 0.055 0.057 0.953 0.070 0.086 0.099 0.647 0.571 0.691 0.500 0.339 0.122 0.728 75% 0.729 0.069 0.054 0.146 0.239 0.080 0.081 1.731 0.093 0.110 0.127 0.847 0.762 0.987 0.640 0.421 0.163 1.271 90% 1.001 0.097 0.092 0.207 0.347 0.110 0.108 2.920 0.119 0.141 0.164 1.048 0.935 1.305 0.822 0.525 0.207 1.971 95% 1.205 0.123 0.127 0.254 0.437 0.133 0.131 4.050 0.140 0.162 0.188 1.207 1.053 1.570 0.942 0.594 0.241 2.547 99% 1.653 0.193 0.252 0.391 0.672 0.182 0.176 7.450 0.180 0.211 0.247 1.727 1.308 2.477 1.236 0.746 0.325 4.313

34

Table 2 Pearson (Upper Triangle) and Spearman (Lower Triangle) Correlation Matrices
The variables are defined in table 1. Sample is trimmed at 1% and 99% for each ratio (excluding the P* ratio) using the pooled distribution. Also, observations for which any of the ratios is negative are deleted. Finally, observations that do not belong to an industry-year group with at least five members are deleted. Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 9,658.
BV /P 1.00 0.63 0.70 0.52 0.54 0.60 0.61 0.63 0.58 0.42 0.92 0.47 0.57 0.62 CFO Ebitda CACT IACT Sales EPS1 EPS2 EPS3 /P /P /P /P /P /P /P /P 0.58 0.65 0.53 0.53 0.52 0.58 0.61 0.56 1.00 0.87 0.55 0.59 0.55 0.59 0.56 0.50 0.43 0.66 0.40 0.48 0.55 0.83 0.38 0.82 1.00 0.65 0.67 0.61 0.68 0.65 0.57 0.45 0.73 0.43 0.56 0.63 0.89 0.38 0.50 0.59 1.00 0.93 0.37 0.82 0.72 0.65 0.45 0.62 0.44 0.66 0.71 0.68 0.27 0.52 0.61 0.93 1.00 0.39 0.85 0.75 0.68 0.49 0.65 0.47 0.69 0.75 0.70 0.28 0.45 0.49 0.26 0.27 1.00 0.49 0.55 0.53 0.27 0.58 0.29 0.52 0.52 0.59 0.93 0.53 0.62 0.82 0.85 0.37 1.00 0.93 0.86 0.53 0.73 0.48 0.87 0.91 0.69 0.38 0.51 0.59 0.72 0.75 0.44 0.93 1.00 0.96 0.51 0.74 0.43 0.96 0.95 0.65 0.44 0.46 0.52 0.65 0.67 0.43 0.85 0.96 1.00 0.49 0.69 0.36 0.99 0.95 0.58 0.45 P1* /P 0.32 0.31 0.30 0.35 0.38 0.17 0.44 0.44 0.46 1.00 0.72 0.81 0.49 0.70 0.39 0.16 P2* /P 0.91 0.60 0.65 0.62 0.64 0.46 0.71 0.71 0.67 0.66 1.00 0.70 0.67 0.79 0.53 0.24 P3* /P 0.41 0.30 0.30 0.33 0.35 0.20 0.38 0.35 0.30 0.80 0.65 1.00 0.35 0.56 0.24 0.08 P4* /P 0.55 0.45 0.51 0.66 0.68 0.42 0.87 0.96 0.99 0.46 0.65 0.30 1.00 0.95 0.54 0.33 P5* Ebitda Sales /P /TP /TP 0.58 0.54 0.39 0.50 0.55 0.70 0.73 0.40 0.90 0.95 0.95 0.66 0.77 0.50 0.96 1.00 0.55 0.28 0.76 0.79 0.63 0.65 0.45 0.64 0.61 0.56 0.28 0.53 0.24 0.54 0.55 1.00 0.50 0.31 0.27 0.22 0.22 0.91 0.31 0.38 0.38 0.13 0.24 0.08 0.33 0.28 0.43 1.00

BV/P CFO/P Ebitda/P CACT/P IACT/P Sales/P EPS1/P EPS2/P EPS3/P P1*/P P2*/P P3*/P P4*/P P5*/P

Ebitda/TP 0.60 Sales/TP 0.43

35

Table 3 Distribution of Percentage Valuation errors for Simple Multiples

Value and value drivers are assumed to be proportional: pit = bt xit + eit . Multiple is estimated excluding the firm under valuation, using harmonic means: bt = 1/ Et

eit p - bt xit ; its pooled distribution is reported. = it pit pit

xit . Percent pricing error is calculated as follows, p

it

The variables are defined as follows: P is stock price; BV is book value of equity; CFO is cash flow from operations; EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization; CACT is COMPUSTAT earnings before extraordinary items; IACT is IBES actual earnings; EPS1, EPS2 are one year out and two year out earnings forecasts; EPS3=EPS2*(1+g), where g is growth forecast. All totals are deflated by the number of shares outstanding at the end of the year.
5 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) t (epst +5 kt bvt +4 ) P1* = bvt + t t + (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )5 s =1

Panel A uses the whole cross-section of firms as comparable firms, Panel B uses comparable firms within each industry (based on IBES industry classification). Panel C also uses comparable firms within each industry, but the multiple is calculated using the median instead of the harmonic mean. Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 9,658. Panel A: Valuation using mean cross-sectional multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% BV 0.000 0.063 0.536 0.697 CFO -0.001 0.104 0.589 0.689 Ebitda -0.001 0.129 0.611 0.687 CACT 0.000 0.047 0.477 0.579 IACT 0.000 0.041 0.448 0.549 Sales -0.001 0.259 0.948 0.761 EPS1 0.000 0.029 0.348 0.440 EPS2 0.000 0.026 0.311 0.368 EPS3 0.000 0.038 0.313 0.347 P1* 0.000 0.056 0.403 0.504 Panel B: Valuation using mean industry multiples Mean Median SD BV -0.021 0.064 0.530 CFO -0.023 0.056 0.554 Ebitda -0.023 0.064 0.572 CACT -0.014 0.013 0.448 IACT -0.012 0.015 0.412 Sales -0.049 0.157 0.934 EPS1 -0.007 0.018 0.312 EPS2 -0.006 0.021 0.289 EPS3 -0.006 0.026 0.293 P1* -0.010 0.038 0.377

90%-10% 1.253 1.304 1.296 1.120 1.060 1.694 0.835 0.743 0.725 0.918

95%-5% 1.620 1.748 1.674 1.510 1.418 2.394 1.118 1.008 0.992 1.203

99%-1% 2.564 2.998 3.019 2.371 2.242 4.797 1.721 1.570 1.653 1.981

75%-25% 0.543 0.559 0.502 0.462 0.429 0.729 0.333 0.303 0.301 0.369

90%-10% 1.152 1.171 1.084 1.001 0.923 1.610 0.711 0.657 0.658 0.799

95%-5% 1.586 1.665 1.555 1.400 1.288 2.304 0.981 0.919 0.927 1.136

99%-1% 2.668 2.938 2.776 2.322 2.177 4.571 1.658 1.550 1.561 1.991

36

Panel C: Valuation using median industry multiples Mean Median SD BV CFO Ebitda CACT IACT Sales EPS1 EPS2 EPS3 P1* -0.109 -0.102 -0.114 -0.039 -0.038 -0.307 -0.028 -0.032 -0.039 -0.063 0.002 0.000 0.000 -0.001 -0.001 0.001 -0.001 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.601 0.628 0.659 0.470 0.435 1.312 0.323 0.301 0.307 0.411

75%-25% 0.571 0.587 0.519 0.465 0.434 0.861 0.339 0.305 0.305 0.377

90%-10% 1.284 1.273 1.160 1.037 0.956 1.936 0.729 0.676 0.685 0.838

95%-5% 1.770 1.816 1.712 1.470 1.353 2.905 1.023 0.958 0.968 1.228

99%-1% 3.054 3.334 3.198 2.469 2.256 6.311 1.774 1.633 1.646 2.199

37

Table 4 Distribution of Percentage Valuation Errors for Intercept Adjusted Multiples

Value and value drivers are assumed to be linear: pit = at + bt xit + eit . Multiple is estimated excluding the firm under valuation, by solving a constraint minimization problem: min var(eit / pit ) = var (( pit - at - bt xit ) / pit )

e s.t. Et it = 0 p it
Percentage valuation error is calculated as follows,

at ,b t

eit p - at - bt xit ; its pooled distribution is reported. = it pit pit

The variables are defined as follows: P is stock price; BV is book value of equity; CFO is cash flow from operations; EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization; CACT is COMPUSTAT earnings before extraordinary items; IACT is IBES actual earnings; EPS1, EPS2 are one year out and two year out earnings forecasts; EPS3=EPS2*(1+g), where g is growth forecast. All totals are deflated by the number of shares outstanding at the end of the year.
5 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) t (epst +5 kt bvt +4 ) P1* = bvt + t t + (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )5 s =1

Panel A uses the whole cross-section of firms as comparable firms, Panel B uses comparable firms within each industry (based on IBES industry classification). Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 9,658. Panel A: Valuation using intercept adjusted cross-sectional multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% 90%-10% BV 0.026 0.084 0.458 0.541 1.038 CFO 0.032 0.108 0.465 0.520 1.013 Ebitda 0.027 0.112 0.480 0.527 1.011 CACT 0.012 0.053 0.401 0.477 0.931 IACT 0.015 0.054 0.380 0.462 0.893 Sales -0.031 0.160 0.676 0.615 1.370 EPS1 0.013 0.039 0.321 0.392 0.767 EPS2 0.008 0.035 0.300 0.344 0.705 EPS3 0.000 0.042 0.306 0.333 0.706 P1* 0.016 0.068 0.365 0.435 0.809 Panel B: Valuation using intercept adjusted industry multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% BV -0.016 0.076 0.477 0.476 CFO -0.016 0.072 0.477 0.474 Ebitda -0.020 0.082 0.496 0.443 CACT -0.012 0.034 0.396 0.406 IACT -0.011 0.035 0.372 0.385 Sales -0.035 0.146 0.668 0.574 EPS1 -0.006 0.026 0.300 0.317 EPS2 -0.004 0.028 0.284 0.296 EPS3 -0.004 0.033 0.289 0.293 P1* -0.008 0.049 0.357 0.342

95%-5% 1.408 1.386 1.413 1.272 1.209 1.908 1.030 0.966 0.976 1.089

99%-1% 2.264 2.427 2.394 2.028 1.887 3.420 1.610 1.533 1.629 1.830

90%-10% 1.032 1.023 0.976 0.884 0.826 1.291 0.689 0.642 0.650 0.754

95%-5% 1.442 1.420 1.384 1.250 1.175 1.852 0.956 0.900 0.912 1.077

99%-1% 2.403 2.496 2.440 2.068 1.917 3.287 1.594 1.511 1.526 1.884

38

Table 5 Leverage Adjustments for EBITDA and Sales Multiples

The variables are defined as follows: P is stock price; EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization; TP is enterprise value (market value of equity plus book value of debt). Valuations using simple and intercept adjusted multiples are conducted using cross-sectional and industry comparable firms. When TP multiples are used, equity value is calculated as the predicted enterprise value minus book value of debt. Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 9,658. .Panel A: Valuation using mean cross-sectional multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% Ebitda/P -0.001 0.129 0.611 0.687 Sales/P -0.001 0.259 0.948 0.761 Ebitda/TP -0.045 0.039 0.601 0.630 Sales/TP 0.000 0.269 1.259 1.031 Panel B: Valuation using mean industry multiples Mean Median SD Ebitda/P Sales/P Ebitda/TP Sales/TP -0.023 -0.049 -0.035 -0.075 0.064 0.157 0.026 0.150 0.572 0.934 0.581 1.113

90%-10% 1.296 1.694 1.231 2.189

95%-5% 1.674 2.394 1.671 3.164

99%-1% 3.019 4.797 2.994 6.602

75%-25% 0.502 0.729 0.535 0.859

90%-10% 1.084 1.610 1.088 1.853

95%-5% 1.555 2.304 1.518 2.698

99%-1% 2.776 4.571 2.696 5.501

Panel C: Valuation using intercept adjusted cross-sectional multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% 90%-10% Ebitda/P 0.027 0.112 0.480 0.527 1.011 Sales/P -0.031 0.160 0.676 0.615 1.370 Ebitda/TP -0.017 0.048 0.513 0.521 1.040 Sales/TP 0.050 0.214 0.978 0.880 1.904 Panel D: Valuation using intercept adjusted industry multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% Ebitda/P Sales/P Ebitda/TP Sales/TP -0.020 -0.035 -0.002 -0.003 0.082 0.146 0.078 0.179 0.496 0.668 0.492 0.702 0.443 0.574 0.447 0.620

95%-5% 1.413 1.908 1.429 2.721

99%-1% 2.394 3.420 2.602 5.407

90%-10% 0.976 1.291 0.976 1.382

95%-5% 1.384 1.852 1.352 1.985

99%-1% 2.440 3.287 2.432 3.524

39

Table 6 Sources of Measurement Error in P1* Analyzed

Valuations using simple and intercept adjusted multiples are conducted using cross-sectional and industry comparable firms. Variables are defined as: P1* = bvt + t

t (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) t (epst +5 kt bvt +4 ) , + (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )5 s =1

5

where Et ( ROEt +s ) for s = 4, 5, , 12 is forecasted using a linear interpolation to the industry median ROE. The industry median ROE is calculated as a moving median of the past ten years ROE of all firms in the industry. To eliminate outliers, industry median ROEs are Winsorized at the risk free rate and 20%.
5 5 E (epst+s ) . P4* = Et ( epst+s ) , and P5* = t t t s s=1 s=1 (1 + kt )

5 (epst + s kt bvt + s 1 ) P2* = bvt + t , t (1 + kt )s s =1 2 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) 11 [ t ( ROEt + s ) kt ] bvt + s1 [ t ( ROEt +12 ) kt ] bvt +11 , P3* = bvt + t + t + (1 + kt ) s (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )11 s =1 s =3

Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 9,658. Panel A: Valuation using mean cross-sectional multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% P1* /P 0.000 0.056 0.403 0.504 P2* /P 0.000 0.053 0.395 0.548 P3* /P 0.000 0.108 0.551 0.640 P4* /P 0.000 0.041 0.309 0.338 P5* /P 0.000 0.029 0.309 0.366 Panel B: Valuation using mean industry multiples Mean Median SD P1* /P -0.010 0.038 0.377 P2* /P -0.009 0.036 0.346 P3* /P -0.016 0.062 0.491 P4* /P -0.006 0.028 0.291 P5* /P -0.006 0.024 0.288

90%-10% 0.918 0.957 1.185 0.711 0.733

95%-5% 1.203 1.226 1.562 0.980 0.982

99%-1% 1.981 1.846 2.693 1.631 1.592

75%-25% 0.369 0.375 0.444 0.294 0.297

90%-10% 0.799 0.803 0.993 0.646 0.655

95%-5% 1.136 1.097 1.400 0.915 0.920

99%-1% 1.991 1.756 2.488 1.528 1.507

Panel C: Valuation using intercept adjusted cross-sectional multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% 90%-10% P1* /P 0.016 0.068 0.365 0.435 0.809 P2* /P -0.001 0.045 0.356 0.463 0.846 P3* /P -0.011 0.079 0.482 0.532 0.988 P4* /P -0.002 0.039 0.305 0.326 0.700 P5* /P 0.000 0.031 0.299 0.342 0.698 Panel D: Valuation using intercept adjusted industry multiples Mean Median SD 75%-25% P1* /P -0.008 0.049 0.357 0.342 P2* /P 0.000 0.051 0.336 0.356 P3* /P -0.013 0.074 0.446 0.397 P4* /P -0.004 0.034 0.286 0.288 P5* /P 0.000 0.034 0.284 0.287

95%-5% 1.089 1.110 1.371 0.971 0.956

99%-1% 1.830 1.733 2.381 1.611 1.545

90%-10% 0.754 0.777 0.899 0.636 0.647

95%-5% 1.077 1.067 1.287 0.894 0.903

99%-1% 1.884 1.720 2.359 1.509 1.495

40

Table 7 Industry Rankings of Multiples

Valuations using the simple multiple approach are performed in each industry. Multiples are ranked according to the variance of percent pricing errors using the pooled distribution. Low rank numbers indicate low variance. Industry classification is from IBES. Code is the first four digits of the IBES industry classification code. Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 9,658.
Sector Name finance finance finance finance finance health care health care health care health care health care health care consumer non-durables consumer non-durables consumer non-durables consumer non-durables consumer non-durables consumer non-durables consumer non-durables consumer non-durables consumer services consumer services consumer services consumer services consumer services consumer services consumer durables consumer durables consumer durables consumer durables consumer durables consumer durables energy energy energy transportation transportation transportation transportation Industry Name finance & loan financial services Insurance Investments undesignated finance drugs hospital supplies hospitals biotechnology medical supplies services to medical prof clothing consumer containers cosmetics food processors beverages home products leisure times tobacco communications leisure retailing foods retailing goods industrial services undesignated conr svc automotive mfg auto part mfg home furnishings leisure products recreational vehicles rubber oil coal gas airlines railroads trucking maritime Code BV CFO Ebitda CACT IACT Sales EPS1 EPS2 EPS3 101 102 105 106 109 201 202 203 204 205 206 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 309 401 402 403 404 405 407 501 502 504 505 506 507 601 602 607 701 702 703 705 7 9 9 6 2 10 9 9 6 8 10 10 7 11 10 11 7 9 11 9 9 10 10 6 10 6 9 8 10 10 10 6 7 2 7 8 8 7 8 5 8 8 5 9 10 10 9 9 7 9 9 8 9 9 10 7 9 11 11 9 9 11 9 11 10 10 4 5 9 8 10 7 11 9 10 9 11 11 10 10 10 8 8 11 10 10 6 8 10 9 8 7 9 8 8 8 7 8 8 10 8 10 8 9 5 7 5 7 9 6 9 11 9 10 5 8 6 9 9 7 6 7 8 7 8 4 8 7 5 6 8 10 7 7 8 5 5 9 1 7 6 7 8 9 7 10 3 10 8 7 4 8 4 7 5 5 8 6 4 6 7 6 5 5 6 2 6 5 4 5 0 6 6 4 4 8 0 8 5 5 6 6 8 9 6 8 6 4 5 5 10 10 11 11 11 11 11 8 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 10 11 11 10 10 10 11 11 5 11 9 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 10 10 11 11 3 4 3 3 7 3 3 3 5 3 3 0 1 1 3 3 0 0 1 3 4 3 2 2 2 4 0 3 1 2 3 5 2 3 3 3 1 0 2 3 0 0 6 2 2 1 2 2 0 3 3 3 1 2 2 3 2 2 1 2 3 1 5 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 2 1 0 1 1 2 2 1 4 1 1 2 0 1 1 2 4 4 2 1 3 2 4 1 0 0 1 4 4 3 3 2 2 3 0 2 8 5 1 2 2 3 P1* 9 0 7 7 0 5 7 4 1 5 9 7 0 0 4 4 6 6 5 5 5 7 7 7 6 5 7 6 7 8 4 4 4 9 5 5 7 4 P2* 0 1 1 2 3 0 0 0 4 0 2 1 2 5 0 0 1 1 3 0 3 1 0 3 3 2 2 1 3 4 2 3 5 4 0 0 3 2 P3* 6 6 4 4 1 4 5 5 3 4 4 6 5 6 7 8 5 4 6 4 2 6 6 0 7 0 4 4 9 1 6 0 1 0 4 6 6 6

Continued ...

41

Table 7 Continued
Sector Name technology technology technology technology technology technology technology technology basic industries basic industries basic industries basic industries basic industries basic industries basic industries basic industries basic industries basic industries capital goods capital goods capital goods capital goods capital goods capital goods capital goods public utilities public utilities public utilities public utilities Industry Name computers electronics software & edp services undesignated tech other computers semiconductors/component electronic syst/devices office/comm equip building & related chemicals containers metal fabricators & dist forest products paper steel nonferrous base metals precious metals multi-ind basic defense auto oems electrical machinery building materials office products multi-ind cap good electrical utilities gas utilities telephone utilities water utilities Code BV CFO Ebitda CACT IACT Sales EPS1 EPS2 EPS3 801 803 804 805 807 808 810 811 901 902 903 904 906 907 908 910 911 912 1001 1002 1003 1004 1007 1008 1010 1101 1102 1103 1105 9900 Med SD 8 9 10 6 10 10 8 10 8 10 6 8 4 9 6 6 9 11 7 8 8 10 8 10 10 8 5 10 7 10 9.00 1.98 10 11 11 11 7 9 10 9 10 9 9 6 8 10 9 10 8 6 10 11 10 9 10 7 9 10 10 9 9 9 8.93 9.00 1.60 9 5 6 9 8 8 9 6 11 8 10 9 7 7 5 7 10 10 9 6 9 8 7 9 8 9 8 6 8 8 8.31 8.00 1.59 7 7 7 8 9 7 6 8 7 7 8 7 10 6 11 8 6 8 8 5 7 7 9 8 7 7 9 8 5 1 7.09 7.00 1.87 6 6 9 7 6 6 7 4 6 6 7 3 9 8 8 9 7 7 6 7 6 5 6 6 4 6 7 5 3 2 11 10 8 10 11 11 11 11 9 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 11 9 11 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 3 3 0 0 1 3 3 3 4 4 5 5 5 3 4 5 1 0 3 0 1 3 1 3 3 2 3 4 0 6 2 1 3 1 0 2 2 2 1 2 3 2 1 0 2 0 2 1 0 1 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 7 1 2 2 3 3 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 3 1 3 4 3 3 2 3 5 0 2 2 0 3 2 2 2 5 P1* 4 8 5 5 5 4 5 7 2 3 4 10 6 5 7 3 5 5 5 9 4 6 5 1 5 4 6 7 10 0 P2* 0 0 1 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 1 4 2 1 2 3 2 3 4 2 1 1 1 1 3 P3* 5 4 4 2 4 5 4 5 5 5 2 4 0 4 1 2 0 4 4 4 0 4 4 5 6 5 4 3 6 4 4.03 4.00 2.07

miscellaneous/undesignat unclassified

Mean 8.26

5.72 10.54 2.59 1.54 2.19 5.19 1.60 6.00 11.00 3.00 1.00 2.00 5.00 1.00 1.87 0.98 1.62 1.42 1.47 2.36 1.45

42

Figure 1 Distribution of Percentage Valuation Errors Using Simple Industry Multiples

Value and value drivers are assumed to be proportional: pit =

x e p - bt xit , is bt = 1/ Et it , and the distribution of percent pricing error, it = it pit pit pit

t it

x +

it

t, is estimated using the

plotted below. The variables are defined as follows (all amounts are on a per share basis): P is stock price; BV is book value of equity; EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization; IACT is IBES actual earnings; EPS3=EPS2*(1+g), where EPS2 is two year out earnings forecast and g is growth forecast, and
5 (epst + s kt bvt + s1 ) t (epst +5 kt bvt +4 ) P1* = bvt + t t + (1 + kt ) s kt (1 + kt )5 s =1

All multiples are calculated using comparable firms within each industry (based on IBES industry classification), and the firm being valued is excluded when computing industry multiples. Years covered are 1981 through 1996. Sample size is 9,658. The chart below is derived from a histogram with columns of width=0.1 (or 10% of price). For example, for EPS3, the fraction of the sample with pricing error between 0 and 0.1 is just over 18%.
20

18 EPS3 16 P1* 14 Ebitda frequency in % 12 BV 10

IACT

Sales

0 -2 -1.9 -1.8 -1.7 -1.6 -1.5 -1.4 -1.3 -1.2 -1.1 -1 -0.9 -0.8 -0.7 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

percentage valuation error

43

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