CFO Talks

JANUARY 30, 2025

His approach involves working backward from desired outcomes, such as an EBITDA goal or exit valuation, and breaking these down into actionable steps and KPIs. For instance, if the goal is to grow and exit, we work backward from the desired valuation. What EBITDA profitability does the company need at the expected valuation multiple?

Communication 52

Communication CFO Valuation Manufacturing 52

CFO Strategic Partners

APRIL 14, 2025

EBITDA measures operational earnings (not capital investments), and it is often a better profitability benchmark than net income. The key is to right-size your borrowing to give you the financial leverage you need without overextending.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) 40

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Leadership Auditing Valuation 40

Barry Ritholtz

APRIL 29, 2025

We learned everything, you know, across from accounting to auditing to, to tax and valuation. I ended up in what was called the valuation services group, where we valued real estate and businesses either for transactions or for m and a activity. So I, I certainly understand the risk of performance relative to a benchmark.

Concentration 52

Concentration Investments Benchmarking CFO 52

Barry Ritholtz

FEBRUARY 17, 2025

But when you look at emerging markets and when you look at value, the opportunity for alpha is much, much greater than it is in traditional large cap growth stocks in the US And a lot of managers in that space actually beat their benchmark. So I had some experience in Africa that was able to leverage for this role. 00:35:18 Right.

Investments 57

Investments Economics Marketing Benchmarking 57

Barry Ritholtz

MAY 6, 2025

So it’s 10 to one, 20 to one, whatever the precisely the leverage they’re using. The valuation of risk versus 00:46:33 [Speaker Changed] Reward 00:46:34 [Speaker Changed] Is something that I think a machine cannot do in the same way that human can. Volatility is your friend, is that what you’re saying? Correct.

Profit and Loss 57

Profit and Loss Risk Management Marketing Banking 57

CFO Strategic Partners

MAY 29, 2025

Leveraging data-driven elasticity models helps CFOs optimize pricing while maintaining trust. Organizations that invest in digital finance platforms gain real-time visibility and responsiveness—positioning themselves to pivot quickly and perform more effectively.

Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) 52

Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Leadership Prioritization Auditing 52

VCFO

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

Owner’s opinions of their business value can be influenced by inherent biases, flawed valuation methodologies, and factors lurking beyond their control. Owners often seek valuations from CPAs or similar entities for purposes such as insurance, estate planning, or internal events.

Valuation 84

Valuation Marketing Benchmarking CFO 84

Nerd's Eye View

JUNE 27, 2023

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how, in 2022, Eric and his wife Kali faced a tumultuous year the firm dipped from $600,000 to $500,000 of revenue run rate in just the first few months and because it coincided with the arrival of their first child they didn’t have the bandwidth and capacity to adapt, how, to help with capacity constraints, (..)

Valuation 86

Valuation Benchmarking Communication Leverage 86

VCFO

MAY 17, 2024

How can you be sure the decisions you are making are taking valuation in the right direction? v360 delves deeply into each of these areas in the way prospective buyers would, looking for leverage points to lean on and details that could derail opportunities if left unattended.

Benchmarking 78

Benchmarking Leadership Strategic Planning Valuation 78

Global Finance

OCTOBER 9, 2024

To get there, they’re leveraging their respective strengths and forging partnerships to create new and innovative payment solutions that can move money across borders at any minute of the day with unprecedented speed. Big banks, like Citi, are jockeying to be their clients’ single “port of call” when it comes to transacting.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) 100

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Startups Banking Treasury 100

The Finance Weekly

MARCH 5, 2024

Next, came a new solution, Datarails Connect , which leverages Excel's success to transform it into a kind of self-service BI solution, enabling finance professionals to become truly independent by connecting their entire data stack to Excel in a simple and self-service manner.

Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) 52

Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Finance Leverage Cash Management 52

PYMNTS

DECEMBER 1, 2017

a share, a price that would decrease Uber’s $60 billion valuation by 30 percent. SoftBank and Dragoneer have received indications from Benchmark, Menlo Ventures and other early investors of their intent to sell shares in the tender offer,” the company said in a statement. billion in funding.

Valuation 57

Valuation Benchmarking Restructuring Numbers 57

PYMNTS

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

Loans were primarily issued to SMB merchants that sell on the site, and bank partnerships were leveraged in some foreign markets. In Amazon’s case, the value of logistics is about $1 trillion, which is the valuation the company reached again this week, after the firm’s results and investments managed to impress investors.

eCommerce 52

eCommerce Benchmarking Restructuring Credit Risk 52

Jedox Finance

APRIL 12, 2023

Does HR understand our workforce’s current capabilities and talents, and how they can be leveraged so that teams can work together efficiently? When setting expectations, the ability to calculate target productivity ratios of employees against industry benchmarks is illuminating for boards and potential investors.

Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) 52

Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Planning Budgeting Benchmarking 52

Barry Ritholtz

AUGUST 16, 2022

RITHOLTZ: And last question about the various teams, does everybody have a different benchmark? And I think that’s reflective of employee having a lot of leverage over employers. And last market question, so we’ve seen equity valuations come down. How do you track performance? TROPIN: Yeah. RITHOLTZ: Right.

Profit and Loss 120

Profit and Loss Foreign Exchange Valuation Marketing 120

Barry Ritholtz

SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

And so I kind of leveraged that when I went to Morningstar because they’re very focused on quality, the whole concept of economic moats, but also about buying companies when they’re trading at a discount to intrinsic value. But there’s always gotta be some element of the valuation really being compelling.

Investments 57

Investments Valuation Concentration Marketing 57

Barry Ritholtz

OCTOBER 31, 2023

And you can go long, you can go short, you can have leverage, you could have higher exposure levels, but the securities are in the liquid public markets versus private equity, which are in illiquid private markets. The best example I always love to give is that Amazon’s last private round was at a $60 million post money valuation.

Investments 62

Investments Marketing Numbers Valuation 62

CFO News Room

DECEMBER 17, 2022

How firms can best leverage their internal data to improve the number of client referrals they receive. But while benchmarking surveys can be helpful to see what tactics the ‘average’ firm is using, some firms might not be optimizing the use of their own internal firm data to discover ways to generate more referrals.

Planning 130

Planning Education Investments Benchmarking 130

Barry Ritholtz

AUGUST 20, 2024

And the advice that he gave to David Einhorn about it that helped lead Einhorn to start really kicking the benchmark’s butt again for the past couple of years. We built a company that was focused on valuation, initially, actually targeting corporate strategic planning departments. That’s amazing leverage.

Concentration 67

Concentration Marketing Valuation Investments 67

Barry Ritholtz

MAY 9, 2023

One, when people have asked me to compare and contrast today versus 2007, 2008, what you hear from a lot of people is, yes, there’s some fairly heady valuations. But I would say generally, there’s less leverage in the system. There were some fairly aggressive kind of investment strategies being pursued.

Investments 117

Investments Banking Numbers Marketing 117

CFO News Room

FEBRUARY 2, 2022

CONROD: I — I think the — in this low interest rate environment people are looking for yield and income, and how do they — they have a — they have a benchmark. RITHOLTZ: Is that valuation issue ongoing? And when zero — when bonds are returning zero, you know, they need to look at other income-related or alternatives.

Investments 100

Investments Numbers Marketing Economics 100

Barry Ritholtz

OCTOBER 21, 2024

Their benchmarks were down. The, the security that 00:19:47 [Speaker Changed] Is 5% is high yield these days 00:19:49 [Speaker Changed] You had the, the Fed come in and, and push a lot of the banks and say, Hey, you, you can’t have a tunnel of leverage on the high yield issuance. They were down 3.8%.

Numbers 57

Numbers Investments Marketing Leverage 57

Barry Ritholtz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

You know, people are comfortable, leverage builds. And because remember, Lehman had the Lehman Agg and that was the benchmark. There is above benchmark returns to be generated by active selection of credit quality duration and specific bonds. You know, the leverage in the system builds. There is alpha.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) 57

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Marketing Investments Education 57

Barry Ritholtz

MARCH 21, 2023

But if you buy low multiples and sell high multiples, either in a long-only beat the benchmark sense, whether over and underweight, and you did the same thing everyone does and call me a hedge fund manager. And value and momentum do, whether it’s relative outperformance against a benchmark or absolute performance in a hedge fund.

Profit and Loss 67

Profit and Loss Valuation Forecasting Investments 67

Barry Ritholtz

MARCH 14, 2023

Everybody wants to sell a company when they get a good valuation. Obviously, profits, very important to company valuation — BERNSTEIN: Absolutely. The other thing we do, Barry, is we group valuation as a sentiment indicator. So we do a lot of valuation work. BERNSTEIN: Correct. RITHOLTZ: Right. RITHOLTZ: Right.

Quantitative Analysis 62

Quantitative Analysis Investments Valuation Marketing 62

E78 Partners

APRIL 30, 2025

The next step is to better connect operations with financial performance, enable quicker course-corrections, and embed these agile habits across functions. Where Theres Opportunity Theres still more that can be done.

Benchmarking 52

Benchmarking Prioritization Valuation Economics 52

Barry Ritholtz

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

00:21:21 [Speaker Changed] So this story came out that, oh, value is defensive because it has this valuation buffer to it 00:21:28 [Speaker Changed] In that one example. Most clients, whether they’re individuals or institutions, have some sort of benchmark, a policy portfolio, some strategic asset allocation that they start with.

Leverage 57

Leverage Investments Marketing Math 57