Accelerated Valuation Program

“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.

You'll also obtain practical insights from experienced professionals based on case discussions and more informal networking opportunities.

Designed for Accelerated Professional Growth

Led by a team of world-renowned faculty, this program 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.

1. Learn methods and frameworks from the top finance minds in the world.
2. Gain practical models you can use immediately at your organization.
3. Learn directly from industry experts who will walk you through real transactions they've completed, and benefit from their accumulated experience.
4. 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.
5. 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:

• Corporate executives such as CFOs, financial executives, CEOs, heads of strategy, and general managers who need to understand what’s important to capital market participants (sell-side analysts, buy-side institutional investors, lenders) in valuing and evaluating their companies
• Investment professionals
• Consultants who advise clients as to deals and valuation
• Bankers interested in a deeper understanding of clients and financing
• Owners of start-ups or family businesses looking to raise capital, negotiate a valuation, or negotiate an exit
• Government professionals looking to monetize or finance projects
• Lawyers, accountants, sell-side analysts, and capital markets executives seeking deeper knowledge on valuation issues

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.

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
• 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.

I really appreciated how the program was structured, starting with a general overview and then delving deeply into capital structure, deal structure, the role of activist investors, and the role of PE firms. It was a great refresher for someone with a finance background like myself, but also valuable for those without a finance background who work for corporations.

—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