My long term plan is to start a private equity valuation firm. I work for a bid 4 accounting firm and I see many clients paying huge amount of fees for 3rd party PE valuations. The valuations are fairly simply – Discounted cashflows, Comparable Company Analysis etc. I believe I can do the this but don’t know what the quickest steps to become such a valuation expert? Will another qualification help….esp the excel/VBA modelling?
Damodaran has 2 lecture series which are excellent; I’d watch both: Corporate Finance and Valuation.
Random thing, look up the ceos and founders of the companies you are valuing/reviewing, via bio or LinkedIn. That will give you an insight to what has worked.
also look up other staff (associates, managers)
hp, good call on the damodaran videos–nice quick refresher.
Link to the valuation videos below for the lazy:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUkh9m2BorqnKWu0g5ZUps_CbQ-JGtbI9
you can take a course on VBA for financial modeling but personally I think it better to just stick to regular excel models, especially if you are fast and follow best practices.
What is your job at the Big 4? If it is not valuation related your first step is to try and get a valuation job (all the Big 4 have them and they are all good places to work). If you are in valuation already then try and focus on portfolio valuations for PE firms, or move to the back office of a PE firm and do it there.
As for what kind of designations etc. CFA is always helpful, but it’s not like you should wait to pass all 3 levels before trying to do something, and if your already comfortable with DCF and comps then you sound ready to make a move.
also quick note: starting a successful firm has less to do with being an expert and more to do with being able to get clients, so if your looking to start a firm the real focus is on building client relationships (not saying you don’t need to know your stuff, just that knowing the most about a subject is not direct path to a success career, it’s all about bringing in revenue)