Valuation is not a mechanical exercise, yet the corporate world treats it like one. The financial landscape is flooded with shortcuts, standard templates, and rules-of-thumb that promise speed but deliver catastrophic mispricing. When leadership teams default to automated formulas without questioning the underlying assumptions, acquisitions destroy value, capital is misallocated, and strategic decisions fail.
To create value, you must understand the deep economic drivers behind the numbers.
This intensive 4-day program delivers a conceptually challenging curriculum designed to dismantle standard, flawed approaches and replace them with a rigorous, bulletproof valuation framework. Moving far beyond basic mechanics, we explore both the theoretical foundations and high-stakes practical applications of discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation.
“The conceptual way of teaching goes beyond simple mechanics and makes you think about why you are doing certain things in your daily work.”
Business Analyst, Fund Investment AlpInvest The Netherlands
The Advanced Valuation program delivers a conceptually challenging curriculum designed to dismantle standard, flawed approaches and replace them with a rigorous, bulletproof valuation framework. Moving far beyond basic mechanics, we explore both the theoretical foundations and high-stakes practical applications of discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation.
How you will benefit
- Economic Value vs. Market Noise: Learn to strictly differentiate between long-term, sustainable value creation and superficial, short-term metrics like EPS, accounting profits, revenue growth, or momentary share price fluctuations.
- The Forecasting Delusion: Master the critical, often-overlooked distinction between predicting a single future free cash flow scenario and estimating true expected future free cash flows across a spectrum of probabilities.
- Deconstructing the Cost of Capital: Move past the blind application of standard WACC formulas. You will learn how to accurately dissect, test, and estimate the appropriate discount rate that precisely matches the risk profile of your forecasted cash flows.
- The Activist Mindset: Acquire the tactical frameworks required to ask the hard, uncomfortable questions that expose hidden liabilities, reveal latent value, and protect capital.
Program length
4 days
| Day 1 | 09:00 – 18:00 |
| Day 2 | 09:00 – 18:00 |
| Day 3 | 09:00 – 18:00 |
| Day 4 | 09:00 – 18:00 |
Next step
We offer carefully crafted learning paths designed to help you dive deeper into various facets of finance. Take the next step in your professional learning path by choosing one or more of our specialized programs, for example:
The Advanced Valuation program will work through a series of conceptual and numeric examples, conducted as group work as well as in plenary discussion, in addition to a long case study enabling participants to deepen, and exhibit, their understanding of the fundamental concepts. These cases will also enable participants to practice the steps in the data-driven, unbiased, valuation process being taught in this program. The process and the conceptual basis for this approach to valuation will be explained and elaborated on Day 1, and the refinement and application of the process will be further illustrated, and practiced by participants, in the case studies and class discussions of the remaining three days. The main topics to be covered include:
Conceptual basis and building blocks of DCF valuation
- What is value and why do we care?
- Distinguishing price and value
- Defining value and distinguishing value creation from value destruction
- Distinguishing value creation from value transfer
- The economics of supply, demand and sustainable competitive advantage
- The connection between industry drivers of competitive advantage and valuation
Valuation concepts
- Understanding and estimating the discount rate (the opportunity cost of capital)
- Distinguishing key performance indicators from value drivers
- Performing historical/financial analysis
- Developing an unbiased, data-driven forecast of future cash flows
- The mechanics of estimating continuing value
The opportunity cost of capital and complications
- Components of the discount rate (the opportunity cost of capital), including the risk-free rate and adjustment for risk
- Incorporating risk – diversifiable versus non-diversifiable risk and asset pricing models (CAPM, APT)
- The impact of leverage and the Adjusted Present Value (APV) and WACC methods
- Emerging markets and other complications
Program preparation
There is some preparatory work required for this program. Pre-readings consist of case materials, chapters of a book and/or a few articles. These materials will be made available on a password protected webpage a few weeks prior to the program.
To ensure maximum benefit from the program for participant and fellow-participants, we strongly advise to prepare prior to attending.
Learn more:
>> Podcast with Kevin Kaiser: Value Versus Price
>> Kevin Kaiser: “Everything is hard to value”
The Advanced Valuation program is built for senior decision-makers and their closest advisors: C-suite executives, corporate finance strategists, private equity principals, investment bankers, and senior consultants. If you are responsible for capital allocation, M&A execution, or corporate strategy, this course will fundamentally shift how you evaluate business decisions.
Prerequisites
Participants should have valuation experience and be familiar with the basic valuation concepts, such as definition of free cash flows, the costs of capital, the Capital Asset Pricing Model and/or the Arbitrage Pricing Theory. For those who do not have sufficient knowledge of valuation theory, AIF’s Valuation program can serve as an introduction to the topic.
Proficiency in English is vital for following this training program effectively.
Is this program not the right fit for you?
We offer other programs which you might find more interesting or useful, such as:
