Technical Question: Cash-on-Cash Return LBO model 1st year

Hi,

sorry to start with a dumb question - I am a consultant trying to break into PE and currently working on my LBO modelling.

So got a running model, balance sheet balances, so far so good. Now something that I find slightly counter intuitive. When calculating my cash-on-cash returns after year 1, I encounter the issue that they are very often below 1 (like 0.6x) even for higher EBITDA multiples compared to the initial valuation I used. I am making a mistake here or is that normal for year 1 cash-on-cash returns?

Thanks a lot for the help!

4 Comments
 

Hi,

thought so, actually my EBITDA increase by about 30m relative to the year 0 (from 140 up to 170) where I bought it. So now I calculate my EV based on an arbitrary EBITDA multiple (say for instance 10) - from this I substract the Net debt to get to my equity value. Of this I take the share of equity that belongs the PE and divide it through the initial cash equity paid in the deal. Now as net debt is relatively large in year 0 the enterprise value actually is quite low and subsequently cash-on-cash is lower...

 
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