Silicon Valley Funding
Read the article: Silicon Valley Adjusts to New Reality as $100 Billion Evaporates and answer the following questions: 1) WeWork postponed its IPO and the valuation of the company plunged from $47B to $8 billion, describe all the parties/agents/stakeholders that were affected by this massive change in valuation and how they were affected. 2) How the plummeting values of the unicorns can be explained? Why were they value higher just a couple of months ago and now they are value lower? (think about what we learned about valuating business and stocks and which variables affect the valuations) 3) Now that the Venture Capitalists and the stock markets are more reluctant to open their wallets for investments in unicorns, the article mentions that some companies will try to source funds through debt instead of equity. What risks could involve that path of action for the company and for current shareholders? 4) In the article there are mentions several unicorns, some of those companies will fail and some will be winners, which one do you believe has the best odds to be successful and why? Read the article: The repurchase revolution and answer the following questions: 1) In class, we have seen that stock repurchases are a good signaling that companies provide to the market, but the article thinks that in this case is otherwise, explain why. 2) The article mentions that some companies are being rewarded with higher stock prices without a need to pay a dividend or repurchase stock, just by reinvesting their profit back in their business, how can you explain this? (hint: think about the type of companies (Amazon), cost of capital vs returns of a project, etc.) 3) In the article is mentioned that a corrupt manager can take advantage of a share-buyback, how this work? Create a simple example showing how this scheme can work. Read the extract from the book The Dhandho Investor by Mohnish Pabrai[1] and answer the following questions: 1.What is intrinsic value of a business and how you can calculate it? 2. What does the Efficient Market Hypothesis say? (to answer read your notes when we viewed this topic in class and the textbook) 3. What does the author think about it and what do you think about the EMH? [1] Mohnish Pabrai is an Indian-born entrepreneur, successful value investor, author, and philanthropist. A bit of an investing late bloomer, Pabrai is a devout follower of Warren Buffett, although he had never heard of him until he was 30. So intent was he to pick the brain of his idol, Pabrai once spent over $650,000 just to have lunch with Buffett.Putting Buffetts principles to work for himself has brought him great fortune, which he gladly invests in the lives of the poorest in India.
