You need to know the rules in order to break them successfully

Discount rate for Discounted Cash Flow

Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) is an entry level financial skill that is described in any textbook, but what discount rate should you use? Finding Your Company’s Cost of Capital The textbooks are not much help when deciding what discount rate to use to express your future cash flows in terms of their ‘present value’.  ‘Use …

Financial Modelling

One of the most advanced financial skills is building a financial model.  It’s advanced not because it is technically difficult but because it simplifies.  It codifies complex situations, puts boundaries on the key variables and links these in a framework within which outcomes of different decisions can be considered.  In this it is very different …

Corporate Venturing

If you really want to encourage new business ideas you need to be brutal about killing off the bad ones as early as possible and concentrating only on the most promising ideas.  A lack of this type of ruthlessness causes business development, start-up incubation and corporate venturing initiatives fail to live up to their potential.  …