Dealing with Cash on Balance Sheet for an LBO

I am looking at a company, and I want to do an LBO modeling. I am having difficulty coming up with a good offer premium because of its unusual cash position. Will love to get comments from the WSO community.

So, the company have an EV of $ 1B, and the market cap is $1.5 B. The reason being there is no debt and the company have $500M + cash.

Private equity usually have 20-30 % offer premium from current market price. So let's say I am offering 33% offer premium from current market cap, that means this company will be bought at $2 B. I understand that you have to offer a premium for the business, but it seems that I am offering 33 % offer premium for the cash as well...I am stuck at the thought of buying $1 bill with $1.33. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Am I doing this wrong, should I offer 33 % premium from the EV and then add back the cash to get a valuation of $1.83 B instead of $2 B?

15 Comments
 
supadupaflygotta add the cash! whachu gonna do without CASH? errbody need cash. CASH MONAYYYY BETCHES

screw the cash....ain't nobody got time for that

 

Very confused with your question. Regardless of cash amount, this shouldn't change the premium you are willing to pay. Model 30% unless you have some reason where they have significantly traded down/up recently. Good spot-check is paying near LTM high.

you assign a premium to the equity value/market cap, not the firm value (but can look at FV premium to current just as a Memo). Cash on balance sheet should be used to fund the cash once the sponsor takes control of company. Say they have $500mm in cash, and you think min cash is ~$100mm, the sponsor can use the difference ($400mm) to pay for the company.

make sense?

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nutsaboutWSVery confused with your question. Regardless of cash amount, this shouldn't change the premium you are willing to pay. Model 30% unless you have some reason where they have significantly traded down/up recently. Good spot-check is paying near LTM high.

you assign a premium to the equity value/market cap, not the firm value (but can look at FV premium to current just as a Memo). Cash on balance sheet should be used to fund the cash once the sponsor takes control of company. Say they have $500mm in cash, and you think min cash is ~$100mm, the sponsor can use the difference ($400mm) to pay for the company.

make sense?

I have to disagree with this. The amount of cash on the balance sheet wouldn't affect the absolute dollar amount of premium that you are willing to pay, but it would affect the premium in percentage terms.

You can take this to the extreme to prove the concept: say you had a lemonade stand run by a 5 year old in Wyoming with $5 billion in cash on the balance sheet. Sure, the equity value of the business would be somewhere slightly north of $5 billion (assuming no taxes), but you wouldn't pay a 30% premium ($1.5 billion) to acquire this business! You'd be willing to pay some absolute dollar amount premium, which wouldn't scale with the amount of cash on the balance sheet.

In this case, you should calculate the purchase price using an EV / EBITDA metric, then move down to equity premium. Apply a multiple in line with precedent transactions and you should find that your equity premium is lower than the average deal in the space due to the abnormal cash position. Because of the substantial cash position, you will probably find that the stock has a relatively low beta, and even a small percent premium would be adequate to convert the purchase.

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1 - No balance sheet usually - It's primarily useful when you have PIKs, or more importantly, mezzanine instruments that are best modeled through the balance sheet. 2 - Not sure I understand your question - you need a minimum cash balance, yes. Companies have to have some cash on hand to pay employees and such. I generally think of it as 6 months of operating expenses. Is that your question?

 
DaCarez1 - No balance sheet usually - It's primarily useful when you have PIKs, or more importantly, mezzanine instruments that are best modeled through the balance sheet. 2 - Not sure I understand your question - you need a minimum cash balance, yes. Companies have to have some cash on hand to pay employees and such. I generally think of it as 6 months of operating expenses. Is that your question?

For 1, I think that's wrong. You can technically do it without a B/S, but you will have a hard time figuring out whether your model checks out or not. You could have a bunch of mistakes and not even know it. 2 - You can do whatever you want with your cash balance. Doesn't have to go towards paydown. Mechnically, your cash amount that you use as the source of your transaction will be a net amount of how much you intend to use and how much you intend to keep on your B/S. For example, if you have 100 in cash and only want to use 25, you will put 25 as your source and the rest of the 75 will go straight to your balance sheet and your equity input will adjust for that.

 
Best Response
OBLI am looking at a company, and I want to do an LBO modeling. I am having difficulty coming up with a good offer premium because of its unusual cash position. Will love to get comments from the WSO community.

So, the company have an EV of $ 1B, and the market cap is $1.5 B. The reason being there is no debt and the company have $500M + cash.

Private equity usually have 20-30 % offer premium from current market price. So let's say I am offering 33% offer premium from current market cap, that means this company will be bought at $2 B. I understand that you have to offer a premium for the business, but it seems that I am offering 33 % offer premium for the cash as well...I am stuck at the thought of buying $1 bill with $1.33. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Am I doing this wrong, should I offer 33 % premium from the EV and then add back the cash to get a valuation of $1.83 B instead of $2 B?

I'm confused. Doesn't the cash get subtracted out in your EV calculation ? Therefore you aren't applying the premium to the cash.... ( which would make no sense).

 

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