Monetary Assertion Evaluation for Worth Investing. 2025. Stephen Penman and Peter Pope. Columbia College Press.
The self-discipline of worth investing has had a tricky time of late. The relentless ascent of passive funding methods, the extended outperformance of development shares because the World Monetary Disaster, and the hovering general valuations in developed markets (the place time-tested valuation ideas now not appear to use), to call however just a few, have all contributed to its struggles. In consequence, the heirs of the Graham and Dodd custom are numbered today and relegated to deep-value methods in rising markets — or Japan. Is that this merely a brief aberration, or does the custom want some refinements to stay related in at present’s monetary panorama?
In opposition to this backdrop, Stephen Penman, the George O. Could Professor Emeritus at Columbia Enterprise Faculty, and Peter Pope, Professor Emeritus of Accounting on the London Faculty of Economics, have printed a 432-page tome entitled Monetary Assertion Evaluation for Worth Investing, a piece firmly rooted within the Graham and Dodd worth investing custom. The e-book additionally expands on the framework developed by Penman in his 2011 work, Accounting for Worth.
In each books, readers will encounter traditional worth investing ideas, resembling negotiating with Mr. Market or the significance of a margin of security, and a few insights from fashionable portfolio principle, such because the neutrality of dividends or an organization’s capital construction in creating worth for shareholders. Practitioners will discover this shocking and eclectic mixture of concepts refreshing and enlightening. Because the authors succinctly state within the introduction:
You can see the e-book contrasts with many funding books. The ever-present beta is just not of highest precedence by far. The widespread discounted money circulate (DCF) is put apart. Certainly, the e-book is skeptical about valuation fashions generally. Maybe surprisingly, the e-book takes the place that it’s best to suppose that “intrinsic worth” doesn’t exist. For a price investor that appears like heresy, however intrinsic worth is simply too laborious to pin down. That requires another strategy to be placed on the desk, one which challenges the market worth with confidence. Some traders see the choice as buying and selling on multiples, good beta investing, issue investing, and extra. The e-book brings a critique to those schemes.
So, what do the authors suggest? The cornerstone of the e-book is the residual earnings mannequin. First formalized within the Nineteen Eighties[1] and Nineties[2], a lot later than different valuation frameworks such because the dividend low cost mannequin, the residual earnings mannequin was popularized within the Nineties by the consulting agency Stern Stewart and briefly adopted by the administration groups of a number of giant U.S. companies to gauge whether or not their funding selections have been creating worth for his or her shareholders. Nevertheless, regardless of quite a few educational papers on the mannequin, its adoption by practitioners has remained restricted, lagging behind extra broadly used approaches resembling valuation multiples and the free money circulate mannequin.
As a fast refresher, the residual earnings mannequin instructs us to consider valuation by the lens of the longer term residual (or financial) earnings {that a} enterprise is anticipated to generate. Residual earnings are merely accounting earnings after considering a value of capital cost. These future residual earnings should then be discounted again to the current and added to the corporate’s present e-book worth to reach at a valuation for the fairness. Notably, if an organization’s return on fairness matches its price of capital, it should generate accounting earnings however no residual earnings, which means that its shares ought to commerce at e-book worth. The class of the mannequin lies within the seamless integration of enterprise fundamentals with accounting figures, which in flip produce a valuation for the investor.
Though the three valuation frameworks (dividends, free money flows, and residual earnings) are mathematically equal, the residual earnings stands out for its means to seize the true sources of worth creation for shareholders. Corporations that don’t pay dividends or reinvest in worthwhile development alternatives can be laborious to worth utilizing the dividend low cost or the free money circulate mannequin, respectivel, however they don’t hinder the residual earnings framework.
The explanation this mannequin captures worth creation extra precisely (and earlier) is rooted within the accruals that govern present accounting programs. Whereas so-called “money accounting” is commonly favored by practitioners over accrual accounting on the oft-touted premise that money is nearer to “laborious and chilly information” whereas unscrupulous administration groups can simply manipulate accruals, Penman and Pope present that this typical knowledge is just misguided. First, money flows themselves will also be manipulated by administration groups.
Second, there are a plethora of transactions that don’t contain money flows but nonetheless shift worth between stakeholders, with inventory compensation being most likely probably the most outstanding instance. However most significantly, earnings are often acknowledged sooner than money flows underneath the “realization precept.” As an example, gross sales on credit score are acknowledged earlier than the corporate will get the money, capital investments are depreciated over time (rising earnings on the onset of the funding), and pension obligations are accounted for instantly, although money is not going to circulate out of the corporate to pay the guarantees till many years later. The necessary implication for traders valuing shares in the actual world, the place the longer term is unsure, is that “[w]ith this earlier recognition of worth added, there’s much less weight on a terminal worth in a valuation.”
In abstract, an accounting system based mostly on accruals and the belief precept inherently displays sound occupied with how corporations create worth for traders, in addition to some pointers for understanding danger and return. Worth is capitalized on the steadiness sheet solely when the knowledge of the funding is excessive, and subsequent earnings are added to e-book worth solely when they’re realized. From this standpoint, different types of “carrying” the accounting e-book, resembling honest worth accounting, fail to uphold these ideas. All through the e-book, Penman and Pope criticize honest worth accounting for encouraging speculative conduct by putting unsure values on the steadiness sheet, which in the end contributes to investor hypothesis — as was exemplified in the course of the dotcom bubble.
The e-book devotes many chapters to refining the standard residual earnings mannequin, which, because of its reliance on fairness metrics resembling e-book worth, web earnings, and return on fairness, fails to adequately handle the problem of monetary leverage. The purpose right here is that one may suppose that including leverage would mechanistically create worth for shareholders since greater leverage would enhance residual earnings by rising the return on fairness.
As Penman and Pope clarify, nevertheless, this line of reasoning is flawed, as the rise in leverage will improve the chance of the funding and, thus, the low cost charges, leaving the valuation unaffected. To resolve this, the authors introduce the residual working earnings mannequin, which makes use of enterprise worth metrics, e.g., web working belongings as an alternative of shareholders’ fairness, web working earnings as an alternative of web earnings, and so forth. In doing so, this mannequin redirects the investor’s consideration to the true supply of worth creation in any firm: the operations of the enterprise.
Lastly, the e-book leaves some area for the “development versus worth” debate, a subject Penman himself explored in a 2018 Monetary Analysts Journal paper[3], in addition to the connection between agency dimension and fairness returns. Readers will discover {that a} coherent accounting framework and its implications for a way valuation multiples work go an extended technique to understanding the problems at stake right here. Penman and Pope argue that simplistic and infrequently deceptive labels resembling “development” or “worth” fall brief in advancing the dialog and can’t change an intensive understanding of accounting ideas.
In conclusion, practitioners will discover Penman and Pope’s e-book not solely extremely related but in addition brimming with invaluable insights. What units this work aside from numerous different “investing” manuals is its bold goal: to supply a sequence of disconnected anecdotes and a cohesive and different framework for difficult market costs. The authors skillfully intertwine theoretical depth with considerable real-world examples, reinforcing the reader’s hard-earned intuitions. I’ve little question that this e-book will turn into a permanent traditional within the Graham–Dodd custom and maybe the Holy Grail for future generations of clever traders.
[1] See, as an illustration, Ok. Peasnell, “Some Formal Connections Between Financial Values and Yields and Accounting Numbers,” Journal of Enterprise Finance and Accounting 9, no. 3 (1982): 361–381.
[2] J. Ohlson, “Earnings, Ebook Values, and Dividends in Fairness Valuation,” Up to date Accounting Analysis 11, no. 2 (1995): 661–687.
[3] S. Penman and F. Reggiani, “Fundamentals of Worth versus Progress Investing and an Clarification for the Worth Entice,” Monetary Analysts Journal 74, no. 4 (2018): 103-119.
