IF you believe mainstream media, Sol Trujillo is the most unpopular man in Australia and Telstra is the most unpopular company [full disclosure: I am the beneficiary of a Telstra shareholding]. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven Telstra for its monopolistic behaviour back when it was Telecom and I didn’t have a choice of carriers.

When Telstra was booted out of the National Broadband Network tender process for submitting a non-compliant tender, pundits were eagerly predicting Telstra’s demise or other “dark and awful consequences”. Telstra had submitted a tender that suited their business model, aspirations and view of the future. They signaled the only way they’d consider lining up for the $4.7 Billion AUD the government was offering. I congratulate them for having the balls to stick to their guns.

Today the Federal Government announced none of the remaining tenders were “value for money” and instead would form a new company to build a fibre to the home network to 90% of Australians. Much ink will be spilled in the future on this deviation from the tender outcomes requested, namely 98% fibre to the node.

Here’s my quick take home analysis:

1. Submitting a tender of this size and complexity is a very expensive exercise.
2. No tenderer was awarded a contract despite complying with the guidelines.
3. Telstra spent a little money outlining the conditions they would accept.
4. Who looks smart now?

This seems like a brilliant use of game theory by Telstra. Sol and his team have been called arrogant and out-of-touch, I think they protected their shareholders interests well.

Just because a deal is on the table doesn’t mean it’s always wisest to take it.

As part of my Corporate Finance class, Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway came up. Nobody had checked its stock price recently so I volunteered to do it. In doing so I came across the following op-ed piece Warren Buffet wrote in the New York Times.

For the record BERKSHIRE HATH HLD A (NYSE: BRK-A) closed on 23 October 2008 at $115,100.00 USD per share with a 52 week range of $105,300.00 – $151,650.00 USD. The company does not pay dividends.

Anyway on to the Sage of Omaha’s words

Buy American. I Am.

THE financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.

So … I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.

Why?

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month (or a year) from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities.

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

Update 10:50am ET 24 October 2008 Of course just after I post this, the Dow takes a bath as Wall Street panics. BERKSHIRE HATH HLD A (NYSE: BRK-A) Real-time: 110,903.00 Down 4,197.00 (3.65%)

I met Richard Hayes at the Sydney OpenCoffee Meetup and he’s written an excellent article that he’s allowed me to reproduce below.

All people working in the Startup / Early Stage consistently asked the same question,
“How do you value business?”

The correct answer is there is no correct answer

Without trying to be facetious here is a number of models that may help.

Anyone wanting further information can attend Richard’s BEERonomics in a pub near you.

Courses in advance corporate finances cost you 2 beers / hour (Cheaper than a MBA)

• Sales Revenue
  Most businesses are valued based upon revenue.
  This means a business with $1 Million revenue would be valued @ $750,000 to $1,250,000
  or values each dollar sales between $0.75 – $1.25
• Price Earnings Ratio
  This is the number of years of after tax profit it takes to return your investment
  A typical private company sells for a PE of 2-5 where public companies sell for 8-20.
  Google sells with a PE 48Many people use EBIT, Earnings (profits) Before Interest and Tax as a measure of how much extra debt a company can take to help pay for the take over.
• Discounted cash flow (DCF)
  This technique combines all the cash generated from the business and then discount
  (reduces) them to a present value. (IE A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow)
  This can be a problem if the wrong interest (discount) it used.
  BTW, The interest rate is ALWAYS WRONG
• Replacement Value
  How much would it cost to get similar stuff either new or used?In software, many people use COCOMO which is a formula that count lines of code and examines the complexity of code thereby allocating a amount of developers time it would take to replicate it.slccount Is a free COCOMO tool that supports about 27 different languages.

  For many software startups this is a good starting point.

• Return on Investment (ROI)
  This combines a number of the above techiques to derive a single figure.Many early stage investors Angels / VCs demand +45% ROI as compensation for the higher risk associated with early stage. This is a serious market failure.

Example:
A team of 3 developers have written 13K lines of PHP source code to develop a DIY superannuation management software. It has taken 6 months part time (IE 50 hour/wk)

They are all leaving their “real” jobs to pursue their dream.

Sales: Nil

User: 250

Total Cash Spent: $5,800

What is the company worth?

1. Sale Revenue Nil

Future Sales Revenue 2009 $1,000,000 (FV)
Discounted @ 40% pa $510,000

Company valuation $383,000 – $637,000

2. Price Earnings

2009 Sales $1,000,000
2009 Profit $180,000

PE 2 (180K x 2 x 40%) $183,000
PE 5 (180K x 5 x 40%) $459,000

Company valuation $183,000 – $459,000

Replacement value $413,228

The following output is from a real project

Totals grouped by language (dominant language first):
php: 13409 (99.83%)
sh: 23 (0.17%)

Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 13,432
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 3.06 (36.71)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 0.82 (9.83)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 3.73
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 413,228
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40).

As you can see there is no right answer but valuation is much more about art than science.

© 2007 Richard Hayes RHI Ltd reprinted by permission.