Valuation glossary

Valer | Definitions | Read more

Muiread Heffernan avatar
Written by Muiread Heffernan
Updated over a week ago

Cyndx Valer is an AI-driven company valuation tool that uses machine learning to analyze a company's financials and extract insights using Cyndx’s comparable discovery capability through a series of step-by-step, guided interactive pages — allowing entrepreneurs, investors, and analysts to get a more accurate picture of a company's worth using traditional methods, quickly and easily.

Valer works by leveraging our Finder AI technology to compare your own financials against your competitors in the market, and instantly returns your valuation report based on Public Comparables, VC and Discounted Cash Flow analyses.

To help you get started using Cyndx Valer, find here a list of terms or words found throughout our Cyndx Valer help center. For further information or questions regarding creating your own custom valuation reports, contact [email protected].



Adjusted tax expense / (benefit)

Calculated as EBIT x (1- Normalized Tax Rate)


Amortization Expense

A non-cash expense allocated in a given year from the purchase of an intangible asset with a defined useful life (e.g., a patent, trademark, or copyright), such as through M&A, or in certain instances its internal development. When terminal amortization is toggled, amortization expense in the projection period is assumed to reflect required capital reinvestment into intangible assets for the ongoing business.


Capital Expenditures

Investments in the acquisition, upgrade, and maintenance of tangible (i.e., physical) asset such as property, plants, buildings, or equipment with a useful life of more than one year. Such costs are capitalized and then depreciated over a period of several years.


Capitalized Development Costs

While most research and development costs are expensed as incurred under U.S. GAAP, some costs, such as the cost of software developed for internal use, are permitted to be capitalized. Internal development or acquisition of capitalized intangible assets such as software systems, content, patents, and trademarks might be included here.


Cost of Sales

Includes costs directly attributable to the production of goods sold or delivery of services rendered in a given period and reflects inventory write-offs, returns, and other related activities.


Depreciation Expense

A non-cash expense allocated in a given year from the capital purchase or internal construction of a tangible fixed asset (e.g., a building, machine, or fixture) with a defined useful life. Depreciation expense in the projection period is assumed to reflect the property, plant, and equipment capital intensity of the ongoing business.


Depreciation & Amortization ("D&A")

The cost of business's tangible and intangible assets spread over their useful lifetime.


EBIT

Earnings before interest and taxes (i.e., EBITDA less D&A), also known as pre-tax operating profit.


EBITDA

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a proxy for normalized cash flow.


Effective Tax Rate

This is a taxpayer’s average tax rate, or what share of their total annual income they’ll need to pay in taxes.


Gross profit (excluding D&A)

Income from the sale of goods or services, net of allowances.


Marginal Effective Tax Rate

Adjusts marginal effective tax rate used in weighted average cost of capital calculation. You may override default tax rate, which is based on national average for company's home country.


Marginal Tax Rate

This is the amount of tax that applies to each additional level of income.


NOPAT

Net operating profit after taxes (i.e., EBIT * (1 - Normalized Tax Rate))


Normalized Tax Rate

It can be treated as equivalent to the cash tax rate reflecting temporary differences between reported and taxable income due to amortization or creation of deferred tax assets and liabilities (so long as changes in these accounts are not double counted in the cash flow statement items.) However, the normalized tax rate must reflect the effective rate by the end of the forecast period to correctly calculate terminal value.


Operating and other expenses

Expenses and (non-revenue) income items related to core business functions (such as management salaries, advertising costs, and office rental expenses) and exclude costs of financing and discontinued operations.


Operating Cash Flow

Cash flow generated by core business operations (excluding investing and financing activities).


Operational Net Working Capital

Calculated as operating current assets, typically including accounts receivable, inventory, and prepaid expenses, less operating current liabilities, typically including accounts payable, accrued expenses, and current deferred revenue. Financing related items such as interest payable/receivable are not included in operational net working capital.


Other Long-term Operating Assets

Non-current assets other than property, plant, and equipment and intangible assets. These include items such as operating lease non-current right of use assets and deferred tax assets (unless adjusted taxes in the profit & loss statement are modeled as cash taxes). These exclude non-current assets related to borrowings such as unamortized revolving credit facility costs and those related to financial investments such as cash, stocks, and bonds.


Other Long-term Operating Liabilities

Non-current liabilities other than financial liabilities and debt-like items. These include items such as deferred revenue, operating lease non-current liabilities, and deferred tax liabilities (unless adjusted taxes in profit and loss statement are modeled as cash taxes). These will exclude debt, pension & OPEB, and finance lease obligations, which should only be included on the opening balance sheet.


Revenue

Income from the sale of goods or services, net of allowances.


Stub Period

The period of time between the Stub Period Date and the end of the first calendar year of the financial forecast.


Survival Rates

Used to calculate survival probability adjusted cashflows based on a company age in a given year.


Unlevered Free Cash Flow

Cash flow to the firm before payments to debt and equity holders.


Valuation

In finance, valuation is the process of determining the present value of an asset. In a business context, it is often the hypothetical price that a third party would pay for a given asset. Valuations can be done on assets or on liabilities.


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