Misano values fair market value for a financial buyer — the 100% (controlling) value of the company at the market median. We do not model the synergies of a specific strategic buyer, nor the maximum price achievable in a competitive auction. Mixing those jobs is how a screening number becomes a negotiation fantasy.
What FMV means here
- Financial buyer: a buyer who earns a return on the cash flows of this business as it stands, without a special industrial fit that creates extra cash flows only for them.
- Controlling (100%) basis: the headline is always the 100% value. Minority is a display layer, not a different engine run.
- Market median: the mid of the low / mid / high band from the multiples engine (custom → niche → NACE), not the top of a beauty contest.
- Pre-synergy: the published EV/EBITDA and EV/Sales bands are control-transaction, pre-synergy. Full benchmark: misano.ai/guides/multiples.
What we deliberately leave out
- Synergies and strategic premia — cost savings, cross-sell, or a higher multiple that only a named strategic can realize. That is their underwriting, not the market median.
- Auction tops — what the last bidder might pay under pressure. Useful for a sell-side negotiation; wrong as a screening default.
- Rewriting the full methodology essay — multiples cascade, normalization, staleness gates, NAV, Damodaran DCF, and the football field stay at misano.ai/guides/how-we-value-companies-at-scale.
Why the split matters in a pipeline
- Screening hundreds of SMEs needs one comparable number. A strategic-premium story for each name is not comparable.
- When the asking price sits above FMV, the gap is the premium you must justify with synergies, scarcity, or process — not silently bake into the band.
- DCF remains an independent cross-check of cash flows (FCFF at WACC, terminal g capped at Rf). It still answers intrinsic value for a financial buyer, not a strategic's cost of capital with synergy add-ons. Method detail: misano.ai/guides/how-to-value-a-private-company.
What this is not
- Not a claim that strategics never pay more. They often do. Misano's number is the financial-buyer floor you compare that premium against.
- Not a net-debt bridge from EV to equity — still a tracked follow-up; the football field flags EV vs equity basis per bar.
- Not advice that you must bid at the median. Mid is the average solid company in the band; low and high exist for a reason.
Get started at https://app.misano.ai/login. From €39/month billed annually, 14-day money-back, no sales call. Product path: misano.ai/scout.
See also: misano.ai/guides/how-we-value-companies-at-scale, misano.ai/guides/how-to-value-a-private-company, and misano.ai/guides/multiples.