It is difficult to value venture firms for the following reasons. First, most venture firms are knowledge-based and high-tech companies with uncertain but fast growing prospects. Second, as venture firms are usually at the early stage of business, the...
It is difficult to value venture firms for the following reasons. First, most venture firms are knowledge-based and high-tech companies with uncertain but fast growing prospects. Second, as venture firms are usually at the early stage of business, there is very little historical financial information. Third, venture firms are also growing so fast that their historical information may be less useful for valuing them than for valuing non-venture firms.
This study takes a new look at relations between the value of venture firms and their assumed determinants, the growth and the earnings potential in addition to financial information for valuing non-venture firms. The sales growth rate is used as the proxy of the growth and the ratio of R&D expenditure and industrial property rights to book value of beginning assets is used as the proxy of earnings potential.
This study employs an extended version of the valuation model developed by Ohlson(1995). In the Ohlson model, firm value is determined using abnormal earnings, book value and other information. The extended version adds the sales growth rate and the ratio of R&D expenditure and industrial property rights to book value of beginning assets as independent variables.
The analysis is based on firm level data on sales, R&D expenditure and industrial property rights of 539 venture firms and 1,162 non-venture firms in the KOSDAQ over the period 1999-2003.
The empirical findings of this study are as follows; First, the sales growth rate and the ratio of R&D expenditure and industrial property rights to book value of beginning assets are positively related to the stock prices of venture firms, suggesting that these variables are important determinants of stock prices. The coefficients of these variables for venture firms are larger than those for non-venture firms, indicating that these variables represent the characteristics of venture firms and are more value relevant for venture firms than for non-venture firms. Second, the ratio of R&D expenditure and industrial property rights to book value of beginning assets is positively related to the future stock prices of venture firms, indicating that the uncertain nature of R&D expenditure and industrial property rights affects long-term value of venture firms.