Aswath Damodaran: “We have all these people telling you to buy a quality company. That's really bad advice. If you buy a quality company that everybody else recognizes as a quality company, you're going to pay through the roof. Good companies can be bad investments….”

It’s perfectly possible for a company to generate rising EPS at the same time it is employing increasing amounts of capital at falling & inadequate rates of return

In laymen’s terms, a company can be busy destroying shareholder value even as it increases earnings

Terry Smith

@hindsightcapllp @mjmauboussin It still has some life, but will go extinct on the day you see "Adjusted Book Value" in Qtrly Con Calls :)

One of the best debates I have seen in recent history between @SunilBSinghania and Saurabh Mukherjea.

TOPIC: Has P/E lost its relevance?

I resonate more with Sunil’s side. Here’s a thread 🧵 on the main points made by him:

@varinder_bansal @safiranand @myvaluepicks

1/ Importance of PE

PE is not the only factor but an important factor.

Ultimately the growth has to justify how much PE are you paying for the company.

There cannot be an unlimited PE multiple based on some xyz parameters.

2/ Hindsight Bias:

In hindsight we can say that from 2001 to 2021, a company grew at 25 % and we should have given a very high PE to it.

But on the day when you buy, you don’t know that the company is going to grow at 25% for the next 20 years.

3/ Millennial preference:

Things have become more competitive.

New generation don’t really care much about legacy.

Convenience and affordability matters more.

The longevity and sustainability of growth has changed dramatically.

4/ Company that require a big investment - There is opportunity to invest big.

Company 1: Mkt Cap of 50 cr
Company 2: Mkt cap of 1 lakh cr

50c r company can become 3x, 1 lakh cr company cannot become 2x.

On absolute basis you end up making 5 cr vs 5k cr in 1lakh cr company.

VALUATION MULTIPLES FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES

• There is a lot of misunderstanding & misapplication of valuation multiples, both among retail and institutional investors
• Get clarity on this by revisiting the 1st principles here

Prerequisites:
• Finance 101 knowledge

THREAD 👇

KEY CONCEPT: VALUE STAKEHOLDERS
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
"Value is in the rights of the user"
So it is important to ask, "VALUE TO WHOM?"

There are 2 main types of stakeholders in a company:
1. Equity holders
2. Lenders

KEY CONCEPTS: MCAP and EV

Value to equity holders is represented by the Market Capitalization (MCAP).

Value to equity AND lenders is represented by Enterprise Value (EV):

Notice how you can convert between Enterprise Value to Market Capitalization easily

KEY CONCEPT: FCFF

Free cash flow to the firm (FCFF) = Cash flows available for distribution to both equity holders AND lenders

Related:
Free cash flow to equity (FCFE) = Cash flows available for distribution to ONLY the equity holders

We will focus on EV & FCFF in the examples

KEY CONCEPT: FUNDAMENTAL VALUE OF A COMPANY

The fundamental/intrinsic value of a company is equal to the present value of the cash flows it would generate in future.

The growing perpetuity expression of value is shown below: