hard · Investment Banking
A sponsor buys a target for 10.0x EBITDA, funded 6.0x with debt and 4.0x with equity, and plans a five-year hold. Two scenarios are identical except for the exit assumption. In Scenario A the analyst exits at the same 10.0x entry multiple; in Scenario B the analyst exits at 9.0x. Across the hold, EBITDA grows and the company uses all free cash flow to pay down debt. A managing director argues that the one-turn lower exit multiple in Scenario B 'costs roughly one turn of entry EBITDA' in equity value.
Why is this intuition most likely WRONG about the dollar impact on equity value at exit?
- The lost value equals one turn applied to EXIT (grown) EBITDA, not entry EBITDA; because EBITDA has grown over the hold and debt at exit is unchanged across scenarios, the equity hit is larger than one turn of entry EBITDA, not roughly equal to it.
- The multiple compression is fully absorbed by the lower exit debt balance, so equity value ends up unaffected and the MD therefore overstates the impact entirely.
- The lost value equals one turn of entry EBITDA scaled down by the exit net debt, so the realized equity hit is meaningfully smaller than the MD's estimate.
- The relevant impact is on equity IRR rather than equity value, and IRR is essentially invariant to the exit multiple once the debt has been fully repaid.
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