Viridian Chart Of The Week: A Different Perspective On Valuing Distressed Cannabis Equities – Option Based Valuation
Analysts have a range of choices when valuing cannabis companies. Viridian commonly uses Discounted Cash Flow Analysis, Public Company Comparables, and M&A Precedent Transactions to value both small private concerns as well as larger public companies.
But, consider the task of valuing a company where the current asset value is close to or even below the value of the debt. The companies in the chart all have total liabilities to market cap in excess of 9x, a good measure of distress. In addition, our initial assigned asset value for all of them, except Cannabist (OTC: CBSTF), is lower than the debt.
Does that mean that the equity is worthless? No, it doesn’t. Finance theory teaches us that we can look at equity as a call on the value of the assets with a strike price of the debt. If the value of the assets is more than the value of the debt, then equity holders have the option to liquidate the assets for the difference. If the asset value remains less than the debt, the equity holders can hand the keys to the debt holders and walk away with no further liabilities. In that framework, corporate equity can never be worth zero unless the time for the option runs out. The chart compares our option valuation with the current market cap of each company.
The application of this simple idea is less obvious. How …