PIK interest

Im doing an onboarding case study for a small-midcap US PE shop. One of the Questions is an LBO model, asking to find Exit EV value using trailing FCF of 10%. It does not specify whether to use UFCF or LFCF

There is also mezzanine debt with PIK interest.

My question is: 1. Do I use LFCF or UFCF (FCFF) for deriving the exit EV

And if I do use LFCF, do I add back PIK interest to derive FCF, considering it is a non cash expense? 

Hence, for LFCF would this be correct: NI + PIK interest + D&A - Capex - Change NWC

or would I not add back PIK interest? For UFCF this is ofc irrelevant. 

Thanks

5 Comments
 

Would add it back since it's a non cash expense. Also PIK debt will be higher at exit that at entry and therefore affect valuation. If you don't add it back you'll be missing the PIK cashflow while still having a growing debt amount

 

EV is a valuation metric that takes into account value from all stakeholders (equity and debt). Therefore, you need to use UFCF which is a cash flow metric that is available to all stakeholders. You always want an apples to apples comparison, so if you’re looking at the value of the entire firm (EV), you need a cash flow for the whole firm (UFCF). If you were only looking for equity value, then you’d use LFCF.

 

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