idle thought on valuation

When in my usual numb and dumb state, i think about valuation ( so i think in my numb state, hypocratic statement), first lines that come to mind are:

i. nothing less than Mergers & Acquisitions
ii Buyer synergies
iii One can debate endlessly ( with other person of course) about the difference between Fair Value and Fair Market Value
iv. Even Trading and Hedging do not escape valuation.
v. To quote from Adkins , Matchett and Toy, " valuation is fundamental to nearly every aspect of finance"

Valuations are needed for stand alone firms or for combined entities for
mergers
acquisitions
company sales
start-ups
joint ventures
share-option programs
IPOs
re-capitalization
etc

Basically, wherever and whenever there is a transaction, we might need a valuation.

When two boys do a transaction in a playground ( purchase of a cricket ball in return for a promise of a homework or for some money), they are evaluating.

Since, in large organizations, lot of people are involved, transactions such as these have given opportunities to some other firms and persons to claim some consultation fee.
There are mainly two things to care about in any situation:
i Your own basics on how the company works, what different financial terms and numbers mean
ii what is the proposed transaction

Sometimes, a third point you need to care about is the legal/ regulatory aspect.

People who are experienced enough can think of transactions that comply with laws as well as provide maximum possible benefit to their clients.

Most of our intelligence is required only to know our basics and to fully understand the transaction. We all succeed with varying degrees on these two accounts. There is very little 'creative' about finance. It is in general more about retaining your fragile understanding. And definitely, there is nothing that is out of our intuitive reach.

Some One

                                     Some One

Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Someone came knocking;
I'm sure-sure-sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.

Walter de la Mare

Of leaders and leadership

Level 7 leadership

With more and more people realizing the importance of everyday leadership, theories continue to evolve around the inherent traits and qualities displayed by the leaders. One of the well known matrix, the 9x9 managerial grid, by Blake and Mouton,

has been in use for sometime now to categorize the managers according to the extent of their orientation towards people and productivity. Another piece of work done by Harvard Working Knowledge categorizes six levels of leadership- sociopath, opportunist, chameleon, achiever, builder and the transcendent. These classifications are differentiated by their long term goals  they seek to achieve and somewhat, also by the measures these leaders take to attain these goals. The sixth level of leadership encompasses a large group comprising departments, divisions, companies and perhaps societies. To what end does this kind of leader works is not very well established but transcendent leaders affect the thought process and functioning of a large and a diverse group. A demagogue like Adolf Hitler and a spiritual leader like Dalai Lama may be placed in this category.
If we think of the traits that successful leaders, and not necessarily very popular leaders, have, we may come across many attributes with varying shades. Attributes like technical skills, planning,good communication skills, result-orientation, team-building, conscientiousness, extroversion, empathy, risk taking ability etc. Whether all or some of these are present in the leaders depends on the purpose they are serving. They have a goal in front of themselves and they imbibe one or more of these attributes to be successful. All of this is well known. There may a case for a leadership at highest level, where a leader may never exhibit these common traits. For example, he may possess technical skills, communication skills etc but still self-train himself to keep all of such qualities in some corner of his mind from where these would not appear to guide his central thought process. It is like a person acting as if he is devoid of any thoughts and skills. Such a person can be generally ineffective if he actually knows nothing. But if the person knowingly keeps all his qualities at bay, then he may be doing the best thing for he will not be hindered by any biases. His qualities will come to fore once his central idea becomes clear to him. Execution of his idea will definitely need all other qualities like communication, monitoring mechanisms, technical know-how etc.The best attribute such a leader would possess will be that he has none! One example that come to the mind is that of Mughal invader and Emperor Babur. Babur knew that he was outnumbered by the Rajputs led by Maharana Sangram Singh.   He also knew that Rajputs were very good warriors. He could have approached his men and tried to inspire them all days and nights; he could have told them that they had been successful against the Lodhis of Delhi, that they had cannons which the Rajputs didn't possess. He gave a  totally different angle to his speech that proved to be so effective that it eventually established Mughal rule in India.

best snippet

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

                                ------Robert Frost

Into my own

ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true. ------Robert Frost

Free mind

A virtuoso can detect definitively, unfailingly some coherence. What i do, where i go, i may be subjected to new people, ideas. But it is that beauty of relaxed mind that nothing new seems to be happening barring few actions around me. Whatever has to happen and is happening around has already been discounted by mind and thus, it renders almost all data floating around me, meaningless. Consequently the radar system in my head has grown extremely strong to catch anything what may appear to me; important , or funny or curious. and nowadays happiness comes only from nothingness and awareness of nothingness. I just avoided the word 'void' as it has negative connotations for many. But even avoid has a void, to give an example of my earnest desire. It is almost like i have been sailing through crowd around me daily, effortlessly separating noise from myself. No accident that i was laughing in the elevator thinking about some silly office love affairs going on. The most useless of things catch my attention, sometimes. I must here admit that this state is not exclusive to me, and countless people experience it for a short period of time. But a large portion of those people are either in pain, or want to get out of it soon to seek some smile based on tangible reasons. These are the people who make efforts to get out of puddles in the road. Laziness and, the tenet of rejection of any sort of effort, is what enriches my thinking and adds consistency in my case, which happily, is very good. I think Ravana's brother kumbhakaran must also have reveled in the same state for his lifetime. Perhaps this was why staying awake did not add much value to him. ( Well, that was extreme ! )

reuters- tennis wrap up stats

WRAPUP 1-Tennis-Nadal seals magnificent seven

By Pritha Sarkar

PARIS, June 11 | Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:57pm BST

(Reuters) - A gaping hole on a smashed-up on-court bench bore testament to how maddening it is to play Rafa Nadal at Roland Garros as the Spaniard was hailed as the 'greatest ever claycourt player' after hoisting the French Open trophy for a record seventh time.

Novak Djokovic found plenty of uses for his racket during a soggy final which spilled into a second day on Monday. The world number one slammed it to the ground, sent debris flying everywhere after smashing it into his courtside bench and even whacked his head repeatedly with it.

But it simply could not conjure the strokes that would have allowed the Serb to become the first man in 43 years to win four grand slams in a row and instead Djokovic, with a sore head and tortured soul, fired a double fault that prompted Nadal to sink to his knees following a 6-4 6-3 2-6 7-5 victory.

The high-stakes showdown had started at 1517 local time on Sunday under menacing grey skies, was contested mainly through driving rain, and ended almost 23 hours later in a sudden burst of sunshine with a triumphant Nadal curled into a foetal position in the most famous arena in claycourt tennis.

On a court that has become a private stage for his jaw-dropping skills, Nadal eclipsed the record he shared with Bjorn Borg and showed the man who had defeated him in the last three grand slam finals that this was his stomping ground.

But unlike Borg, who quit the sport at 26, the same age as Nadal is now, the insatiable Spaniard still hungers to extend his astonishing Roland Garros run which now stands at 52-1, with a 7-0 record in the finals.

"He's definitely best player in history on this surface, and results are showing that he's one of the best-ever players that played this game," Djokovic told reporters after his 27-match winning streak at the slams was ended by Nadal in the three hours 50 minute duel.

Nadal, though, was not feeling so invincible when he woke up on Monday morning with a 6-4 6-3 2-6 1-2 lead.

As far as he was concerned, the thought of joining Australian Jack Crawford as the only man to have lost four successive slam finals, was the stuff of nightmares.

"I had lost three grand slam finals in a row to him. If I had lost a fourth final, this would have been very difficult for me," said Nadal, who had reached the Paris showpiece without dropping a set. "I was very nervous all night. So in my mind, this was the final I had to win."

He need not have worried as after only 50 minutes of action on Monday, he was once again cradling the Musketeers' Cup and running his fingers down the list of champions on the metal plate at the base of the trophy, knowing that as of June 11 2012, his name will appear on it more than anybody else's.

EXCEPTIONAL ERA

Nadal might have rained down on Djokovic's parade - denying him the chance of doing something no man has done since Australian great Rod Laver in 1969, but at least Djokovic had the consolation of knowing that he is an intrinsic part of an exceptional era in men's tennis.

If there were any doubt about how this golden trio of Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer measure up to generations gone by, it seems that every time they step on a grand slam stage, there is a fresh deluge of eye-watering statistics.

They have now won 28 of the last 29 grand slams - it would have been 29-of-29 if Federer had not blown a two-sets-to-one lead against Juan Martin del Potro in the 2009 U.S. Open final.

All three players have been in a position to win four slams in row. Federer in 2006 and 2007, Nadal in 2011 and Djokovic this weekend. From 1969 to 2006, only Pete Sampras came close to pulling off the feat in the men's game in 1994.

The trio have also dominated the top ranking since Federer first climbed to the summit in February 2004.

"The sport is experiencing some really good times now. We're attracting a lot of attention because we have these two great players, and ... myself. We really have some charismatic players, a lot of personalities. This is good for tennis," said the world number one.

A French Open final that had so much riding on it proved tricky and exasperating for both players.

A day earlier tennis fans has seen the best and worst of Djokovic. But at least he had got his temper tantrums under control to fight back from two sets and a break down to win eight successive games as persistent drizzle turned the surface into a muddy mess.

That had left Nadal irritated, Djokovic rejuvenated and the encounter on a knife-edge with the Spaniard leading by two sets to one but a break down in the fourth as the finale headed into third-week finish for the first time here since 1973.

When the players returned on Monday, though, Roland Garros resembled a ghost-town with most of the boutiques in the grounds closed and only a handful of people milling around the alleyways.

It was not long before Nadal started to haunt Djokovic in a half-full Philippe Chatrier Court.

The Serb was left whacking his head with his racket within minutes of the restart as he went down break point after belting a forehand into the net to end a 21-shot rally.

Seconds later the Serb saw his 2-1 break advantage vanish after a leaping netcord allowed Nadal to blaze an audacious passing shot winner.

Djokovic raised his arm to slam another racket, but thought better of it. He smacked his head again with his racket after coming off second best in yet another 20-stroke plus rally, and complained bitterly to the umpire when the rain showers returned with Nadal just one game away from victory.

But the rain Gods were not willing to play ball with Djokovic on Monday and rapidly cleared away to allow Nadal to claim his moment of glory. (Editing by Toby Davis)