Books

• Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies (Seventh Edition), by McKinsey & Company with Tim Koller, Marc Goedhart and David Wessels, 2020. This book is described as the bestselling guide to corporate valuation. It weighs in at a hefty 878 pages and covers just about every topic related to valuation that you can imagine.

 

• Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset (Third Edition), by Aswath Damodaran, 2012. This comprehensive (974-page) volume was written by a professor of finance at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

 

• The Market Approach to Valuing Businesses (Second Edition), by Shannon P. Pratt, 2005. This 389-page book is devoted to a single valuation method: the market approach.

 

• Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs, by John Doerr, 2018. John Doerr, one of the most successful venture capitalists, writes about using some simple objectives to use for your planning.

 

• Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, by Richard P. Rumelt, 2011.

 

• Strategy That Works: How Winning Companies Close the Strategy-to-Execution Gap, by Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi, 2016. Recommended by Mark Leiter, former Chief Strategy Officer of Nielsen.

 

• Your Strategy Needs a Strategy: How to Choose and Execute the Right Approach, by Martin Reeves, Knut Haanaes, and Janmejaya Sinha, 2015. Written by a global team at The Boston Consulting Group. Recommended by Mark Leiter.

 

• Mergers & Acquisitions Playbook: Lessons From the Middle-Market Trenches, by Mark Filippell, 2010. This is the best book I have come across about M&A for midsize companies. It was written by my Oaklins colleague, Mark Filippell, a partner in our Cleveland office.

Websites

• SaaS Capital created the SaaS Capital Index, which follows the valuation metrics for 64 public companies that are “pure-play, B2B SaaS businesses.” Metrics are a multiple of annualize run-rate (“ARR”) revenue. SaaS Capital is based in the U.S. and invests in SaaS companies. www.saas-capital.com.

 

• The Association for Corporate Growth (“ACG”) aims to drive middle-market growth by serving 90,000 investors, owners, executives, lenders, and advisers to global middle-market growth companies. www.acg.org.

 

• MCM Capital has a wealth of information on its website, under the tab “Education.” Blogs, videos and white papers (under the name “Well Capitalized”) explain how private equity and valuation work. www.mcmcapital.com.

White Papers

• What’s Your SaaS Company Worth? by Rob Belcher of SaaS Capital, 2019. This excellent 19-page report can be found at www.saas-capital.com.