In this interview we explain:
- What is Shareholder Value-Added
- Why is an important concept to understand
- The importance of risk assessment
Transcript for: What is Shareholder Value-Added?
[00:00:05 –> 00:00:58] Edmund: Well, Hello, everyone. This is Edmund Bradford, and I’m delighted to have with me today, Professor Malcolm McDonald. And we’re talking about three things, really. We’re talking about shareholder value, marketing, and how that connects to being a good company. And in the last video, we just kind of got an introduction to the subject of shareholders and what shareholders are interested in. But I know I’ve heard about and talk about this a lot and it isn’t easy to package up into a few small minutes. I think it’d be interesting just to at least pick up on the subject of shareholder value-added, which can be very technical, but I think it’s worth just trying to get ahead around that particular area. So Hello, Malcolm, and welcome to the Interview again.
[00:00:59 –> 00:00:59] Malcolm: Hello Ed
[00:01:00 –> 00:01:08] Edmund: Could you summarize what is shareholder value and why anybody should care about it?
[00:01:08 –> 00:04:10] Malcolm: Well, I must say, it’s an enticing thought to try and make a topic like shareholder value-added interesting and exciting. It clearly isn’t other than to those people who benefit from it. In the main, these are shareholders. But let’s keep it simple. I mean, what is it? Well, everybody knows what net free cash flow is and its net free cash flow having taken account of the time value of money, and you think that’s not a difficult concept because of the time value of money, you’d rather have a pound or a dollar or a Euro today than you would in five years time. So having taken account for the time value of money, the cost of capital, which I’ll talk a little bit about because it’s not the most exciting topic in the world and of course, the risks associated with the company or the organization’s strategy. And let me give you one very simple example of this. If, for example, keeping the math simple, the cost of capital is 10% and you’re a small company and you’ve got £20,000 invested in your company. And as I say, the cost of capital is 10%. If you make a net profit net free cash flow of 1500 pounds, you have actually destroyed £500 worth of shareholder value. If you, on the other hand, make £2000 net free cash flow net profit, you have neither created nor destroyed shareholder value. If on the other hand, you’ve created, let us say £2500 worth of profit, you’ve created £500 with a shoulder value. And the question I ask most people, I say what sort of nutty what sort of idiot would deliberately set out to destroy shareholder value? Because the point is it started off with a guy called Rappaport and then morphed into what’s become shareholder value-added. Now the world is full of expressions like Return on Investment, Rona, DCF Payback, Net profit, EBIDTA, Brand Equity, Customer Equity, Customer Lifetime Value, and so on. Each one, in its own way, is very valuable and tells you something different. But the reality is that the one that has filtered to the top over the last 15 or 20 years is shareholder value-added. And, you know, if you rather than going into all the details, it’s quite important for marketers, for example, to understand what the cost of capital is because every organization has it. It’s the one hurdle you’ve got to get it over in order to justify investment funds.
[00:04:13 –> 00:05:47] Malcolm: That’s one side of it. I talked about the time value of money, the big one, however, and the complicated one is this expression. I use risk, the risk of the strategy of the organization. It’s extremely complex, and I don’t want to muddy the waters now, other than to say, you know, there’s a model called a capital asset pricing model, which explains how stock markets work. All I’d say is that, in summary, a normal, rational, risk-averse investor requires an increase in expected future returns for any more risky investment in order to compensate for any potential volatility. I mean, that, to me, is a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but risk assessment has risen very high on the agenda of those organizations and people like me who work with organizations globally in assessing risk. And the best companies in the world do assess risk. Formally, we call it due diligence, but the best companies have processes in place to make sure that they have taken account of risk in their predictions for shareholder value-added. I think probably I will stop there because, as I say, it’s not the most exciting topic in the world. But I hope I have at least explained how it works and why it is so important.
[00:05:47 –> 00:07:23] Edmund: You have Malcolm, and you’ve done that is normally when I hear you present this, you’ve got some charts and graphs and things to help. And I think in concept is actually quite simple, really, because what we’re saying is that an investor has different alternatives to where to put their money. And if you’re not delivering the minimum returns, the cost of capital that they’re looking for, they don’t need to invest in your marketing project or even your company at all. They can invest that money elsewhere and get a better return. So just because you’ve got a good payback plan, you’re making some good profit doesn’t necessarily mean that actually, you’ve reached the minimum cost of capital. And that cost of capital, as you said, is dependent on time, time adjusted returns, and is also dependent on the risk that’s factored into it. And that is a big area. And in a giving your book, for example, in marketing and finance book, you talk about different types of risk. For example, market share risk is one sort of risk. In our book we do together, there’s an implementation risk as well, that the objectives that you set out, the strategy that you laid out doesn’t get implemented successfully. So risk itself is a huge area. But I think in a way, marketers can’t shy away from it. Understanding risk and how it’s used as a major area to get head around.
[00:07:23 –> 00:07:46] Malcolm: Yeah. And I suppose it’s pretty obvious at the end of the day that if a company has a history of its profits going up and down and so on and so forth, it’s known as a volatile company, and therefore the shareholders will require a high return to take account of that risk. So it’s a pretty simple concept at the end of the day.
[00:07:47 –> 00:08:12] Edmund: Excellent. Thank you, Malcolm. Thank you for simplifying what can be very difficult and technical subject. I’m sure that’s really useful to a lot of people. In our next video, we’re going to be talking about how a good market strategy could improve shareholder value. So thank you again, Malcolm, for your time this morning. Much appreciated. And looking forward to our next conversation.