Mastering corporate finance & valuation from the master
A prologue, some context, and pre-amble to Undiscounted
What is Undiscounted?
Undiscounted is my blog where I delve into the world of corporate finance and valuation, specifically as taught by Prof. Aswath Damodaran of NYU Stern, Spring/Summer class of 2023. My aim is to provide a neutral lens on these two interlinked academic topics but with some biases on the sell-side.
To do that, let’s first nail all the principles and concepts straight out so that there’s no doubts and confusions on valuation & corporate finance, whether you are on the buy-side, or sell-side.
1. Why this, why now
I have been a finance practitioner for 15 years now, having gone through the grind of actually owning businesses and deploying finance theories in real life. I refer to this as my Second Phase, with my First Phase loosely defined as my time in deals advisory or managing portfolios.
I began my career as an ECM (Equity Capital Market) investment banker, specialising in the marketing & distribution of equities. Later, I spent several years in private equity as both a General Partner and later as Limited Partner before moving on to manage a multi-asset portfolio for a family office.
Throughout my career, I have been pitched to every working day by some of the best salespeople in the world, had coffee with David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group co-founder), visited many swanky offices, and had frequent lunches with many top-decile PE fund managers and advisors in the Asia region.
10 years in, I decided to venture out on my own and began the journey of buying, building, and selling businesses of my own, particularly in the e-commerce space. Not forgetting my specialty, I also acted as an intermediary in a few small-medium size transactions, helping hard working business owners monetise some of their stakes.
This journey was not without its challenges, including extensive travel at my own costs, hospitalisation, and almost mental breakdowns when you feel like the world is against you. Ultimately, I decided to liquidate all my ventures before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, essentially monetising my business' Terminal Value.
I soon learned that my rolodex was mostly useless in my entrepreneurship journey because most people only had one question in mind: "What's in it for me?" The market is selfish, and this is an important concept that I will revisit soon in the lecture notes.
Contrary to most, COVID-19 was a blessing to me because I had the hindsight benefit of the 2004 SARS and 2008 Great Financial Crisis to learn from as part of my financial and market studies. Selling volatility became my playbook, and it is where I managed to get back and more.
My Second Phase ended once a large deal I was advising achieved financial close.
2. For aspiring entrepreneurs & corporate finance peers
This is now my Third Phase. I’m extremely bullish.
Having been there and done that. I’m now back into corporate world, earned myself a management accountant qualification and begin to retell my stories to those that are still early in their career.
I decided to go deep in my profession, but my prior experiences can be yours. As the saying goes, to teach is also to learn. Mentoring is also part of my annual repertoire as I am part of my alma mater’s mentoring panel. See how I created a “cannon event” for my mentee.
I hope to not only inspire you through my structured sharing of experiences and knowledge but to also re-inspire myself again.
All my corporate finance & valuation knowledge are gained on the job, some classes & workshops but a lot of Googling, Youtube and of course referencing back to Prof. Damodaran’s materials.
For myself, this blog is my public class notepad, on formal learnings of these 2 subjects from the best teacher, virtually; to complete the circle of both theory & practice.
3. What to expect
If you follow wave theories, the Third Wave is usually the strongest. Similarly, in my Third Phase journey, I envision this to be the biggest career move for me (in line with my bullish view). Not just being a Finance Practitioner but to also use technologies and platforms to multiply this journey of mine. I can plan but I have no clue where it will take me, this is the fun thing of being entrepreneurial.
I’m a slow-food believer because this is where the nutrients are. In publishing, I believe the same too. All my contents are long-winded because I want to spread nourishments to your brain and mine.
For this Undiscounted blog, I’ll do my best to quickly post up all the lecture notes from the Corporate Finance & Valuation classes. This blog will be dedicated for these 2 subjects for now as mentioned.
I do post regularly in my LinkedIn on sharing my entrepreneurship journey in the maximum 3,000 characters allowed (long-form!). While also provide commentary on latest financial happenings. As of to date - I have provided ELI5 type of posts on SVB Bank Run & Credit Suisse - UBS merger.
If you are a Malaysian, you may find some delight in my Farm Fresh - Inside Scoop acquisition post that has gone viral. And another 1 about ZusCoffee's lighting speed growth.
Fan of Everything Everywhere All At Once? I’m a big film geek and you may find some insights on how Entrepreneurship is very much like EEAAO. Pop culture is my secret weapon in content creation, my Taylor Swift origin post is my best posts currently.
As a learner of story telling, this is why I decoded Apple’s latest iPhone 15 advertisement via the 3-arc story telling structure.
My featured posts can be found here.
4. Subscribe because it costs nothing for now
I have done enough of digital ventures to know how to monetise, this is not my intention in Phase 3. It will all be free (for now).
Substack has a paid subscription feature which give me the option to monetise this blog. Not for the class notes, they will always remain free.
The subscribe to email feature is only an option for you to be alerted if I post up new class notes. When you subscribe, there's an option to pledge any dollar amount (voluntary) and share. While pledging is not necessary, sharing this blog in your own network would be greatly appreciated.
Otherwise, you can always check in voluntary as I do have a pretty easy to remember blog name. However, is cooler to shout I have 1469 number of subscribers rather than I have 24369 number of readers.
Thanks for your support by subscribing!
5. Enjoy this journey because you only die once
Time value of money is often quoted in valuation. Have you heard of time value of time?
Money is worth more today compared to the future but is time worth more today compared to the future? My interpretation is that it is not. Just like the saying of “Rather late than never”. In fact, it can be argued that it is actually inverse to being discounted. As older a person gets, his marginal minute of being alive next becomes even more valuable.
While money can be discounted, time is Undiscounted.
I’ll leave this piece of wisdom open for you to think about and re-evaluate your priorities but first, let's start with the classes because you need to learn on how to be the last lemming at least. Yup, slow & steady wins the race.
