Twilio and the Rise Of Debt Financing

Twilio, a cloud communications platform designed to help developers add messaging, voice, and video to web and mobile applications, went public on June 23. Priced at $15 per share, Twilio’s share price closed at $28.79, the largest single-day increase of an IPO in over two years, which increased the company’s market cap by 95% to nearly $2.4 billion.

Windfall or Shortfall? Equity Compensation for Outside Service Providers

In a typical service provider-customer relationship, the provider delivers a service and the customer delivers cash. Upon delivery, both parties are happy and move along to the next transaction. However, a trend that gained popularity in the early 2000s adds an extra level of complexity to this seemingly simple business relationship – equity payments.

Bryce Erickson Published in The Texas Lawbook

Bryce Erickson, ASA, MRICS, Senior Vice President, authored an article titled “An Investor’s View of Major League Sports Franchises: Outsized Returns or a Risky Play?” recently published as a Lead Story in The Texas Lawbook. The Texas Lawbook is an electronic publication … Continued

Heinz and Parris to Present at TSCPA Luncheon

Nicholas J. Heinz, ASA, Senior Vice President, and Lucas M. Parris, CFA, ASA-BV/IA, Vice President, will present “Business Valuation Update: Current Topics in Tax Valuation” for the Tennessee Society of CPAs Memphis Chapter on September 13, 2016. Topics addressed include the IRS’ S … Continued

Southern Capital Conference 2016

Matthew R. Crow, ASA, CFA, president, Jeff K. Davis, CFA, managing director, Travis W. Harms, CFA, CPA/ABV, senior vice president and Sujan Rajbhandary, CFA, vice president, are attending the Southern Capital Forum Annual Conference in Atlanta from September 14-16, 2016.

Allocating Purchase Price for a Pharma Transaction – Pfizer Acquires Medivation (Part 1)

In August 2016, Pfizer (“PFE”) announced it would acquire the biopharmaceutical company Medivation (“MDVN”) for $81.50 per share, or a total enterprise value of approximately $14 billion, in an all-cash deal. The transaction made headlines for the how the size of the deal escalated over a period of approximately six months prior to the PFE announcement, as well as the potential implications regarding the attractiveness of (relatively) smaller biopharmaceutical targets in an environment where larger deals face an inordinate amount of regulatory scrutiny.

Lee to Present at ASA Business Valuation Conference

Timothy R. Lee, ASA, Managing Director of Mercer Capital, will present “How to Effectively Review an Appraisal Report” at the American Society of Appraisers’ Business Valuation Conference on September 14, 2016.

Corporate Finance in 30 Minutes

Corporate finance does not need to be a mystery. In this whitepaper, we have distilled the fundamental principles of corporate finance into an accessible and non-technical primer. Structured around the three key decisions of capital structure, capital budgeting, and dividend policy, the guide is designed to assist directors and shareholders without a finance background to make relevant and meaningful contributions to the most consequential financial decisions all companies must make.

Fairness Considerations for Mergers of Equals

When asked about his view of a tie years before the NCAA instituted the playoff format in the 1990s, Coach Bear Bryant famously described the outcome as “kissing your sister.” If he were a portfolio manager holding a position in a company that entered into a merger of equals (MOE), his response might be the same.

PCAOB to Focus on M&A and Fair Value in 2016

In July 2016, the PCAOB issued a staff inspection brief to provide information about the plan, scope and objectives of PCAOB inspections in 2016 of registered audit firms and their audits of issuers. Translation: watch out for these potential landmines when preparing, auditing, or reviewing your firm’s financial statements.

PV-X: WACCs for E&P Companies

In the oil and gas industry, standardized reporting and industry analysts typically use a 10% discount rate on projects’ future cash flows. In this post we explain how such a discount rate is calculated and its effects on valuation; and then discuss a model that provides the discount rates that exploration and production companies face in the current market.

Five Variations on a Theme: Analyzing Transaction Premium Data (Part 1)

The consistent theme of the Appraisal Foundation’s exposure draft The Measurement and Application of Market Participant Acquisition Premiums is that acquirers do not value control for its own sake, but rather for the tangible economic benefits that can be achieved by the exercise of control. In other words, control of a business enterprise is valuable only to the extent that at least one of two conditions prevail: (1) the control buyer anticipates that the business will generate incremental cash flows under their stewardship, and (2) the control buyer has access to less expensive capital than the current owners.

Market Value of Total Capital and Enterprise Value: Cash Creates Potential Differences in Total Capital Multiples

What is the difference between a company’s total capital value and enterprise value? The difference between these two concepts is the treatment of cash. In the current market environment, many public companies have accumulated significant, even massive, amounts of cash. The treatment of cash, then, will impact multiples. In the following post, we examine the effect of cash on the relative valuation multiples of Apple, Microsoft, and IBM.

Income Post-Mortem and Coupon Clipping

“So why be constructive on private credit when one of the tenets of the central banks’ zero and negative interest rate policies is to push investors to take more risk? Maybe it is misplaced, but I think there is more value (all else equal) in high current income than waiting on a terminal value when asset values are inflated.”

New Additions to Mercer Capital’s Staff

Mercer Capital welcomes Mr. Brian F. Adams, Mr. Rohan Bose, Mr. Daniel P. McLeod, Mr. Zachary W. Milam, and Mr. Joshua P. Rodriguez to our professional staff. We also welcome Mr. Connor T. Bran as the firm’s Social Media Specialist and Marketing Associate.

2016 Mid-Year Market Review of Public and Private Equity

The first six months of 2016 were eventful for U.S. markets. Worldwide, markets dealt with the continued blight within the oil industry and the shockwave of United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union. In the U.S., investors worried over potential Fed interest rate hikes and the inflated unicorn valuations.

Lucas Parris Receives Intangible Asset Specialty Designation

Lucas Parris, CFA has been awarded the Intangible Asset specialty designation from the American Society of Appraisers. The Intangible Asset specialty designation focuses on the valuation of intangible assets in financial reporting, tax, and litigation valuation settings.

Appraisal Foundation Releases Final Guidance on Fair Value Measurement of Customer-Related Assets

On June 15, 2016, the Appraisal Practice Board (“APB”) of the Appraisal Foundation released the final version of the Valuation for Financial Reporting Advisory #2, The Valuation of Customer-Related Assets. The non-authoritative best practices guidance elaborates on valuation approaches and methodologies that can be used to measure fair value of customer-related intangible assets such as customer lists, order or production backlogs, and contractual and/or non-contractual customer relationships. This post briefly discusses this document.

Non-GAAP Measures: The SEC Updates Interpretation of Disclosure Regulations

Non-GAAP measures can provide useful context around required disclosures for analysts and other users of financial statements, especially regarding management’s perspective on business. Updated guidance from the SEC in mid-May 2016 clarifies its interpretation of rules and regulations on the use of non-GAAP financial measures.

2016 Q1 Analyst Call Report

Our quarterly summary of analyst calls is as revealing as usual, as pacemakers in the asset management sector review this quarter’s performance and how it may shape the year ahead. Madeleine Harrigan highlights four RIA market trends discussed by expert analysts.