Know what your company is worth before someone else puts a number on it.
A technical appraisal of what the company is worth, built from the numbers of the operation and from market evidence. The basis for selling, planning succession, bringing in a partner or settling a shareholder dispute.
If you built a company, you know the operating numbers by heart: revenue, margins, payroll, inventory. What the whole business is worth, though, rarely has a ready answer. And the question tends to show up unannounced: in an offer to buy, in a conversation about succession, when a partner comes in or goes out. Answering off the cuff gets expensive.
A company's value is calculated. It comes out of the cash the business generates and out of what buyers have paid for comparable companies, adjusted for the risk that the projection does not hold. What the owner feels, and what a competitor mentioned over lunch, stay out of it. That is the work of valuation: the substantiated appraisal of what a business is worth. At Evolua Capital it is done by the people who negotiate the purchase and sale of companies day in, day out: partners with more than 20 years of experience and more than R$ 400 million in strategic transactions advised.
Believing the company is worth X is one thing. Defending it in front of a buyer is another.
When the number has to hold up
Selling or merging
Before you sit down with a buyer, you need to know what you are defending. A valuation gives the conversation a technical baseline and keeps the first number on the table from being theirs.
An offer has arrived
An offer has arrived and you cannot tell whether it is a lot or a little. Understanding what an informed counterparty would pay changes the answer, and it changes it before you get attached to the number.
Succession and family governance
Estate divisions, holding structures and agreements among heirs need a reference value everyone accepts. A technical report takes the split out of emotional territory and puts it on ground both sides can examine.
Bringing in a partner or investor
Bringing someone into the company means putting a price on the stake. A well-grounded value protects the relationship and lowers the risk of a partnership that starts on a costly misunderstanding.
A partner's exit
When a partner leaves, the price of the stake is usually the most sensitive point of the separation — sometimes the only one. An independent appraisal gives both sides a reference they can argue over without turning the arithmetic into a personal fight.
Disputes and arbitration
In court or arbitration, the report gets read by people who want to knock it down. We document methodology and assumptions so that every choice in the calculation has an answer ready.
From the first document to the report
Understanding the business
Before any spreadsheet, we look at how the company makes money: customers, contracts, cash cycle, dependencies. Valuing something well starts with knowing what is being valued. All of it happens under a confidentiality agreement, from the first conversation on.
Getting the numbers straight
We go through the financial statements, separate what belongs to the company from what belongs to the owner and adjust the effects that distort the result. In a family-run business that is routine. The goal is to reach the result the operation actually delivers, with every adjustment documented on both sides.
Discounted cash flow and multiples
We use discounted cash flow, which estimates value from the company's future capacity to generate cash, and market multiples, which compare the business against similar companies and transactions. Every assumption is explained in plain language. The result is a range, with the scenarios that hold it up, and you understand where it came from.
Talking the result through
The report is handed over in a meeting. We sit down with you, walk through scenarios and assumptions and discuss what holds the value up and what pushes it down. This is the stage that draws the most questions, and it is where the document turns into a decision tool.
Delivery and defense
You receive the complete report, with methodology and calculation trail documented. If the value gets challenged, by a buyer or by an expert witness in a proceeding, we stand behind every assumption on technical grounds.
Most arguments about price are arguments without a basis. A well-built report shortens the conversation.
What you end up with
A complete valuation report
A technical document with the company's value, the methodologies applied, the assumptions adopted and the scenarios considered. Written to be read by the people who decide and to hold up under challenge.
The calculation trail and explicit assumptions
Every number can be traced back to its source. You see what was assumed and how much each assumption moves the result.
A read on your value drivers
We point out what holds the value of the business up and what pushes it down. Even if no transaction happens now, that reading tells you where to work.
A session with the partners
A working session to present the result, with room for questions and a review of assumptions. The engagement ends when the people who decide have understood the number.
Technical defense of the report
If the report is used in a negotiation, an arbitration or a court proceeding, we defend its assumptions before counterparties, advisers and expert witnesses.
Felipe Machado
Founding Partner & CEO
Daniel Miecznikowski
Partner, Diligence & Tax Director
William Júlio de Oliveira
Partner, M&A Legal Director
Questions that keep coming up
Does this report hold up if the other side challenges it?
That is what it is written for. Stated methodology, assumptions visible one by one, an open calculation trail: whoever disagrees has to disagree with a specific assumption and say why. A report that shows only the final number falls apart at the first serious question. And if the value is challenged in a negotiation, an arbitration or a court proceeding, the people who signed the work are the ones who defend it.
My accountant knows the company better than anyone. Why can't he do it?
He does know it, and he will be a good partner during the work: part of the data comes from him. Valuation, though, is a different discipline. It means projecting cash flow, pricing risk, choosing comparables and defending each of those choices, which is the ground of people who advise on buying and selling companies. And there is the obvious part: in a negotiation or a dispute, a report signed from outside the company weighs more than an estimate made inside it.
How long does the report stay good for?
It holds for as long as the assumptions behind it hold. A large contract won or lost, earnings that shift to another level, a new competitor, interest rates in a different place: any of those calls for a review. If your appraisal is a few years old and you are about to use it in a conversation that matters, update it first. An old report gets in the way more than it helps.
Does it work for a fight between partners, or a family estate division?
It does, and that is one of the most common uses. Here the report does something specific: it gives the parties a number none of them picked. When each side arrives with its own arithmetic, the conversation becomes a tug of war. An independent piece of work, with its criteria stated, gives everyone a starting point they can examine line by line. It does not guarantee agreement. It shortens the road to one.
Who is going to see my company's numbers?
The people working on the case, and no one else. The confidentiality agreement is signed before the first document leaves your hands. The material stays with the team on the mandate, and the report goes only to the people you name, in the format you prefer. Beyond that, nothing moves without your word. If you would rather your own management team not know the work exists, the work gets organized that way.
What will you need from my company?
Less than most people expect. Financial statements from recent years, contracts and whatever explains how the operation runs, plus a few hours of conversation with you and with whoever handles the numbers. When the information is organized, the work moves quickly; when it is not, organizing it becomes the first stage. We tell you plainly, right at the start, what is missing and what can be done with what already exists.
Start with a private conversation about what your company is worth. What you do with the answer is your call.
Other services
Mergers & Acquisitions
Advisory for selling or buying companies, from the first diagnosis through to signing. We run competitive processes, built to protect confidentiality and defend the price.
Structured Credit
Credit deals designed case by case, whether to expand, reorganize debt already on the books or fund working capital. We handle the analysis, the deal design and the negotiation with banks, funds and investors through to signing.