PA:

well i mean a PE firm took out a special dividend so they have no cash equity left in the business.

It doesn't lose its equity stake. You're right that it has got its invested sum back, but their ownership of the company still exists, they still hold equity and there is still a estimate-able cost to their remaining call option.

But since you're looking at a private company, you're going to be comping CoE / WACCs anyway.

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

You're thinking way too textbooky about this.

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 
Best Response

I guess what you are saying is that the company had equity (on the books, in the BS) before, but then it has made so much losses recently that its negative retained earnings cancels out its paid in capital?

In this case, a company should not be able to (depending on the relevant company law in whatever country this is in) pay out any dividends. You can't generally pay dividends on negative retained earnings, so I am not sure how they would pay this special dividend.

If this company is the way that I think it is, you could approximate an equity value through other means, such as multiples, and use that as the equity value in the WACC formula.

If it is making losses now and has a terrible capital structure, but you expect it to make profits later, I would also suggest you run a rolling WACC based on each year's (or each quarter's) evolving estimated capital structure, rather than running the whole model with one single WACC.

Although, honestly, this is a bullshit question as it is unclear wtf you are talking about.

Go East, Young Man
 

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