Terminal Value in SMEs: Testing the Multiple EV/EBITDA Approach

This study focuses on answering whether EV/EBITDA multiple of public companies in the food industry can be useful to obtain the Terminal Value (TV) in the valuation of unlisted small and medium-sized food companies. A case study into Spanish unlisted agribusinesses is designed for several samples and accounting years from 2010 to 2013. By means of a discounted cash flow (DCF) model combined with bootstrap techniques, the TV/EBITDA empirical distribution of the unlisted multiples is obtained for two different scenarios of free cash flow (FCF) growth, and then compared with the EV/EBITDA of the listed companies in the same industry. The results show that the stock market EV/EBITDA multiple may be used to determine the TV in the valuation process of unlisted small and medium-sized food companies that consistently obtain positive cash flows.