StrikeAndYield crib sheet · information and education only

Valuation & Deal Analysis

The arithmetic underneath all six: what a business is worth, what a buyer can pay, and which of those two numbers a deal is actually priced off.

The desk — 10 transaction types

Fairness opinion	A narrow statement, on a stated date, about one specific offer. It says far less than most readers assume, and what it says is precise.
Precedent transactions	What was actually paid for similar businesses, control premium included. Facts, from a market that no longer exists.
Synergies	The savings a combination is supposed to produce — announced with confidence, paid for at announcement, and checked years later if at all.
Trading comparables	What the market pays for similar businesses today. The choice of peers is made before any arithmetic and is most of the valuation.

Accretion and dilution	Whether the buyer's earnings per share go up or down. Not a valuation, and the number a board will actually ask about.
Discounted cash flow	The only method that values the business itself. Also the one whose answer moves most when nobody is looking.
Exchange ratio	How many buyer's shares each target share becomes. In a share deal it is the only number, and it is about relative value.
LBO analysis	The same cash flows run backwards. Not what is it worth, but what can be paid at a target return.
Sum of the parts	Each division valued separately and added up — used to argue a group is worth more apart than the market says it is worth together.

The rate everything is discounted at, assembled from inputs that are mostly estimates of things nobody can observe.

The discount rate, and how little of it is observable — Small changes in the rate move the answer far more than the forecast does
What the comparable set is allowed to contain — The choice of peers is the valuation
Whether earnings are the reported ones — Adjustments accumulate in one direction
The buyer's cost of capital, not the seller's — The same asset is worth different amounts to different owners
What the transaction is actually priced off — Enterprise value, equity value and the offer price are three different numbers
The alternative on the table — A valuation does not set a price; a negotiation does

Before the pitch	A view is formed with no access to the company
After the data room opens	The model meets what the business actually looks like
At the board meeting before signing	A fairness opinion is delivered on a specific offer
In the disclosure document	The methods and ranges are published for shareholders
Long after closing	The purchase price is allocated across the assets acquired

Counted from the same table each transaction page prints. Not a rating and not a ranking: there is deliberately no total.