Volume 15, Issue 1

Much has been written about various remedies in litigation involving intellectual property (“IP”) infringements, some economic and other non-economic. A common remedy across different types of IP is lost profits. This paper explores similarities and differences among different types of IP infringement: patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secrets. Common elements needed in any lost profits claim, especially causality, are presented and along with damages implications for plaintiff and infringer by type of IP. These are a few of issues considered along with brief discussion of key statutes, cases, and the alternative of damages based on reasonable royalty rates.

Estimating the market price of a company with multiples is common practice. Especially if several multiples are used simultaneously, the bandwidth of value estimates might be wide. The paper aims at narrowing down this bandwidth with a conceptual analysis. I analyze the different ways to average peer multiples, the links between common multiples (‘inter-multiple’ analysis), the relevance of their components (‘intra-multiple’ analysis) and the resulting choice between a bottom-up and a top-down approach for deriving a multiple, and the impact of differing capital structures.

In relative valuation peer groups of comparable companies are essential to derive the value of the firm. Valuing a target firm that is in financial distress by using a set of healthy peer group firms probably leads to an overvaluation. We examine whether the financial distress risk has an influence on a company’s value and quantify the discount through financial distress. We identify financial distress by Standard and Poor’s long-term issuer ratings and Altman’s z″-score. We then match the identified firms in financial distress with healthy counterparts that are comparable in value relevant characteristics, i. e. profitability, risk, and growth, to estimate the percentage difference in valuation multiples. Using rating information, in every year almost half of the companies are in financial distress whereas by Altman’s z″-score about 20% of the companies in the sample are in financial distress. We find that the discount caused by financial distress makes up about 4–7% of firm value. The discount increases for lower rating classes and lower z″-scores. Besides the degree of financial distress, market downturns as the financial crisis affect the distress discount.

Valuation of a distressed company is a very tricky issue, for which many approaches and methods have been provided by the literature. Unfortunately, many of the more suitable proposals from a theoretical point of view (i.e., those based on option pricing theory, and even integrated with game theory) are very difficult to apply to real cases. To face the many contingencies emerging in a real case valuation, a scenario discounted cash flow (SDCF) model is provided here. The focus is on companies at an advanced stage of distress, where their ability to operate as a going concern is in question, and maintenance or recovery of business continuity requires significant interventions in the firm’s strategic, operational, and financial structure. In this context, SDCF, with a number of arrangements elaborated here, appears useful for valuing assets, debt, and equity – from current or potential new investors – and the interactions between them, which are particularly critical for distressed companies. At the same time, SDCF takes into account the firm’s liquidation option, not only at the valuation date but even after a restructuring plan has been launched. The going-concern value including the liquidation option should be the reference point for judging the suitability of business continuity compared to liquidation. In presenting the model, the key concepts and methodology adopted are set out following a numerical example inspired by a real case.