Company Valuation - How long does it take in IB/PE/Hedge Fund?

Sadly enough, you can probably get within 10% of the right valuation in about 15 minutes by looking at comps/precedents and slapping a multiple on it. But getting the "right answer" (something that is defensible and serves the purpose of your MD or client) can take a lot longer. As an IB analyst, you're probably building out a model based partly on company guidance, partly on VP / D / MD guidance and partly on a guess. The iteration on the model and amount of effort will vary depending on the situation, both the type of deal (M&A? IPO?) as well as the stage of the deal (are you doing a bake-off for an IPO or coming up with a price range as the lead-left bookrunner for the IPO), and lastly the amount of data you have to work with. If you're pitching a small, private company, you're probably just getting close on numbers since they're not likely to provide you with anything, nor is it out in the public arena. So this can all affect time spent. In addition to the model, you're probably building a couple outputs (precedents table, model output, football field, DCF, etc) to put in a presentation along with supporting pages to help the story. Hope this is helpful.