The Accelerated Valuation Program
Knowing how much a business or asset is worth is critical in making informed decisions about selling, expanding, or seeking investment. In this intensive program, you'll gain the analytical frameworks to evaluate and engage in value-creating decisions across both public and private markets.
“LBOs and company valuations are the epicenter of corporate finance. This one-week course provides both the academic rigor and real-world context for how transactions are developed and consummated.”
—Nick Alexos, EVP, CFO of Univar Solutions and Booth AVP program faculty
Valuation is not just a financial concept—it’s a strategic imperative. Understanding how to measure the value of a company, asset, or investment provides a critical framework to make optimal decisions. As a leader, mastering valuation empowers you to make informed strategic choices, optimize resources, navigate complex deals, and build stakeholder trust.
Whether you need to understand —or have direct involvement in — M&A, investing, divestitures, or other strategic moves in a capital market, this program will broaden and deepen your understanding of valuation to help you make market-leading decisions.
You will:
- Gain a deeper understanding of the thinking and methodology behind valuations—building and analyzing an operational model, the various valuation methods, the financing options, the different structures, and the returns.
- Analyze the financial implications of strategic decisions -- applied to various market settings and types of entities.
- Understand how various financial structures, tax structures, and legal structures impact how deals should be structured.
- Explore types of financing and their implications for value.
- Discuss relevant ESG considerations including current regulatory and legal issues.
- Understand activist investors and what companies can do to protect themselves.
Designed for accelerated professional growth
This intensive program, led by a team of top faculty, combines essential theories and models with real cases and expert-led discussions. You'll understand the real-world complexities of transactions, accelerating your experience level and helping you to anticipate challenges and opportunities with your own strategic decisions.
- Learn methods and frameworks from a team of world-renowned faculty.
- Gain practical models you can use immediately at your organization.
- Learn directly from industry experts who will walk you through real transactions they've completed, and benefit from their accumulated experience.
- Learn from case studies alongside peers from multiple job functions, allowing you to explore new perspectives and test different courses of action from the safety of the classroom.
- Grow your professional network and explore new developments in the field.
This program is designed for executives who engage in, or need to evaluate, corporate transactions or financing. Executives from public, private, and government organizations will benefit.
Titles include:
The program benefits a range of executives, from those preparing for their company's first valuation to more seasoned professionals seeking to gain exposure to more cases and structures.
Participants should have familiarity with finance concepts such as net present value (NPV), WACC, internal rate of return (IRR), capital structure, and other related concepts — gained either through professional experience or educational experience equivalent to the content of an MBA or a graduate-level corporate finance course such as Chicago Booth’s Executive Finance Program or Mergers and Acquisitions.
Douglas Skinner
Douglas J. Skinner is the Sidney Davidson Distinguished Service Professor of Accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is a leading expert in corporate disclosure, financial reporting, and payout policies.
Skinner joined Booth in 2005. He served as Deputy Dean for Faculty for nine years, from 2015 to 2024, and Interim Dean in 2016-17. He was responsible for the construction and financing of the University’s Hong Kong campus, the home of Booth’s EMBA program in Asia, completed in 2018. Prior to joining Booth, Skinner served on the faculty of the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan where he was KPMG Professor of Accounting.
Skinner is an independent trustee and chairs the audit committee for Harbor Funds, Harbor Funds II, and Harbor ETF Trust, a mutual fund and ETF complex that offers actively-managed mutual fund and ETF products. From time to time, he serves as an expert financial economist in litigation involving complex accounting, anti-trust, securities, and valuation matters.
Skinner holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics with first class honors in Accounting and Finance from Macquarie University in Sydney and a master’s degree and PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Rochester.
Skinner’s research addresses topics that span financial reporting, disclosure, auditing, and corporate finance, focusing on the capital markets/valuation effects of firms’ financial policies. His research is published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics.
Skinner previously served as editor of the Journal of Accounting Research and the Journal of Accounting and Economics, both top tier academic accounting journals.
Skinner has extensive experience teaching in Booth’s MBA, EMBA, Executive Education, and Ph.D. programs. He currently teaches Managerial Accounting in Booth’s EMBA program and Empirical Research Methods in Booth’s PhD program. He has previously taught Corporate Finance and Valuation, Financial Accounting, and Financial Statement Analysis. He has advised PhD students who have taken faculty positions at Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, Wharton, Stanford, London Business School, among other top schools around the world.
Amir Sufi
Amir Sufi is the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He serves as an associate editor for the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Professor Sufi was awarded the 2017 Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association, given biennially to the top financial economics scholar under the age of 40.
Professor Sufi's research focuses on finance and macroeconomics. His research on household debt and the economy forms the basis of his book co-authored with Atif Mian: House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014. He earned a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was awarded the Solow Endowment Prize for Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching and Research. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2005.
Haresh Sapra
Professor Sapra joined the Booth faculty in 2000. Haresh Sapra studies the real effects of accounting measurement policies, disclosure regulation, and corporate governance. His current research focuses on the role of fair value accounting on financial stability. His research has been published in journals such as The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, and Games and Economic Behavior.
Nicholas Alexos
Nicholas W. Alexos joined Univar Solutions in January 2020 as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, bringing in-depth knowledge and expertise around market and margin expansion in the general industrial and consumer sectors. Before joining Univar Solutions, Mr. Alexos served as Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer at Dentsply Sirona, Inc. where he led the growth strategy and executed successful portfolio shaping initiatives. Previously he served as a Managing Director of Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC, where he helped a wide array of portfolio companies achieve growth and margin expansion.
He has served on a number of boards including VWR International, Option Care Health, Sirona Dental Systems, Team Health, Performance Health and various others. He has also served on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations including the Children's Inner City Educational Fund, Lake Forest Country Day School, MetroSquash, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Council, Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago and the Harvard Dental School of Medicine Advisory Board.
Mr. Alexos received his bachelor’s degree in business from Loyola University, and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Foundations of Valuation: Frameworks and Tools
- Critical valuation inputs
- Discounted cash flow (DCF) methods
- Comparables/Multiples-based valuation
- WACC and financing
- Why payouts matter
- Assessing earnings quality and other accounting complexities
Deal Structuring
- Financial reporting for inter-company investments and how such reporting affects performance metrics
- M&A accounting and tax reporting issues
- Corporate restructuring mechanisms and their impact on company financials
Leveraged Finance
- Understand the mechanics, pricing, and contractual terms of high-yield bonds and leveraged loans
- Frameworks for investing in and originating debt in highly leveraged and private equity transactions
- Liability management from a CFO perspective
Private Equity Investing and Leveraged Buyouts
- Explore the qualitative and quantitative frameworks that PE/buyout investors use to evaluate investments
- The performance of PE investments
- July 2024 session in Chicago: In an interactive case study format, Nicholas Alexos -- CFO of Univar Solutions, private equity investor, and Chicago Booth alumnus-- will lead you through Apollo's recent acquisition of Univar.
Pulling it all together – Understanding Activist Investors
- How do activists identify targets?
- What do activists do to increase and extract value?
- Activist short-sellers: who are they and how do they operate?
- What companies can do to protect themselves against activists
- Why do activists seek increased payouts and leverage?
Applications
Throughout the program, you'll explore applications in a variety of settings such as:
- Private Markets, Private Equity
- LBOs
- High-Growth Entities
- Infrastructure
- Distressed Debt
- Alternatives
Content will be taught by a mix of Booth faculty and senior executives, often Booth alumni, who will lead case discussions and networking sessions. Program outline is subject to change.
—Sana Naim, Finance Director, North America Truck, Navistar, Inc.
I really liked the private equity portion, as well as the introduction to activist investing. To a colleague, I would say it’s a good starting point for understanding practical corporate finance.
—Ayodele Onawunmi, Managing Director, FMDQ Group PLC
The Accelerated Valuation Program was an enriching experience that blended both theory and real-world case studies. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to further hone their perspective and analysis of valuations across private equity, public equity, and LBOs.
—Alexander Lisov, Associate, Public Investment Fund – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Very comprehensive on overall valuation and M&A.
Very comprehensive program and put into context so many pieces – improved my perspective.
Advance Registration Benefit
When you commit your attendance by the specific expiration dates in 2025, you’ll benefit through financial savings. The savings will be automatically applied during the registration process. For more information, review our Advance Registration Benefits FAQs.
- April 7-11: $11,250 fee if registered by January 14.
- October 20-24: $11,250 fee if registered by July 28.
Upcoming Courses
| Date | Fee | |
|---|---|---|
| April 7-11, 2025 | $12,500 | REGISTER NOW |
| October 20-24, 2025 | $12,500 | REGISTER NOW |
Contact us to learn more about our special pricing for group enrollment or ways we can work with you to support your organization's education budgets.
Earn Credit Toward the Global Advanced Finance Program
This program qualifies as an elective in the Global Advanced Finance Program, an exclusive program that awards Chicago Booth alumni status after completing six finance and strategy elective sessions over two years.