How do you value an investment company?

Is revenue used to value these firms even though most of the profit isn’t even payable to them, instead to the investors of the fund and bank borrowing repayments. Is using value of assets also out because they are ‘managing’ them and not owning them?

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Asset managers generate revenues mainly with management fees - a % of total assets under management (AUM) or a % of returns they take for their service. A common fee structure for hedge funds is the 2/20, meaning the fund takes 2% of total AUM regardless of performance and 20% of returns generated by their investment on behalf of their clients.

So, when building a revenue model for such a firm you forecast AUM with inflows, outflows, organic growth, inorganic growth, market appreciation then multiply that by your forecasted management fee to get your revenue.

You can also add side services they may provide like advisory, but typically most of their revenue will come from management fees.

 
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