How to treat convertibles/hybrids in a DCF

Hi!

Apologies in advance for the noob question.

How do you treat/value convertibles (e.g. convertible preferred shares, convertible notes) in a DCF for a private company to derive price per share? The issue is that the fair value of the convertibles depends on the share price. Since it is a private company, there is no observable market price. How to solve this issue?

Thank you for your help!

16 Comments
 

If they are in the money (equity value / share > strike price) then stock. If not, then debt. There’ll be some circularity involved here which is ok.

 

So you would first calculate implied share price with the assumption that the hybrids are pure debt, then compare strike with the implied share price to decide if the hybrids are converted to equity?

 

I was just wondering as it may come up in an interview, it was more of a theoretical question. So you would base it on the documentation?

 

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