May 10, 2016
Building on the startup-oriented tools that Rick has published on his startup law website, we’ve created a simplified valuation framework for you. We’ve extracted this tool from financial models and valuations we’ve built for clients over the years. The multiples...
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June 8, 2012
A founder recently asked about how much money to raise and when. Specifically, he asks about choosing between splitting a $1.4m, two-year round into $800k for year 1 and then $600k for year 2. The key issue in splitting rounds...
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October 7, 2010
The NYT displayed some confusion about finance realities in this older column about net operating losses, a perennial “favorite” topic of ours. We’ve done some complex planning (aka invent new deal structures) for a corporation and its shareholders that held...
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September 5, 2010
Someone recently asked about the cost for a valuation. As with many questions we hear, this one also has to be answered with a question: why do you need a valuation? And that, in turn, is really better framed as...
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August 9, 2010
Here’s a recent post by Rick Colosimo in the Five-Minute General Counsel series on due diligence, with an even shorter short form due diligence request list than our own investor-based due diligence list. One question we haven’t answered here yet...
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June 9, 2009
Just recently, we published another post regarding stock buybacks and how the math is the math: you can change your risk profile, but in any case, at some point the usage of cash to buy stock makes sense as a...
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June 2, 2009
[NB: this post was started quite some time ago, and it recently re-surfaced in our ‘drafts’ folder. Sorry for the delay, but we believe that the underlying issues are still interesting and how companies use cash is more, not less,...
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March 24, 2009
This short summary notes that IRC Section 409Ais now effective (actually as of January 1, 2009). While there are number of well-known types of deferred compensation that are subject to 409A, there is one area where the exact application of...
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February 23, 2009
Net operating losses, or NOLs, accumulate when a business has tax losses in a given year rather than profits. They are typically carried back to earlier profits but may be accumulated in as carry-forwards for up to 20 years. Sirius,...
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January 28, 2009
Most valuations follow a traditional pathway, with only slight differences between public and private companies: 1. Determine a valuation range based on the values of comparable public companies 2. Determine a valuation range based on the values revealed by transactions...
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March 29, 2006
Geoffrey Colvin, the star of our last post, is once again delivering basic finance concepts to the masses in his all-too-short article on the AT&T- BellSouth merger. Believe us, basic is the level that many corporate finance & management teams...
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