A influência dos modelos de avaliação de empresas (valuation)no processo decisório dos fundos de venture capital

Abstract

Venture Capital and Private Equity (VC/PE) firms first appeared in the United States around the late 1930s and the early 1940s aiming to promote the development of new businesses (MEADE, 1977; FELIX, 2005). In Brazil, this type of industry just emerged in the 1980s and soon experienced accelerated growth in the 1990s (RIBEIRO, 2004). Currently, VC/PE firms are seen as the new kings of capitalism worldwide (CUNY; TALMOR, 2007) and have increased significantly, especially in the emerging countries (PRICEWATERHOUSE COOPERS, 2010; DELLOITE, 2010), because of both the opportunity for earning abnormal returns and the relevance of VC/PE assets for the national economies (BOTAZZI; DA RIN, 2002). Given that such assets are intrinsically different from other investment opportunities (WRIGHT; ROBBIE, 1998a, 1998b), this thesis aimed at investigating how valuation models used by Venture Capital / Private Equity Funds influence on decision-making processes in Brazil. It draws on a multi-case study relying on structured questionnaires and semi-structured interviews carried out from September through December 2010 to approach the decision makers of three investment funds that focus on Brazilian early-stage companies. The results show that the decision makers have heard of and used especially the following methods, all of them vastly explored in the literature: models of relative valuation, models based on Discounted Cash Flows, models based on revenue multiples and Economic Value Added models. The results also point to both the application of home-made (adapted) models and the non-application of other models that the literature usually deems as robust and important, such as the Ohlson Model (OHLSON; GHAO, 2008) and the Option Pricing Model (DAMODARAN, 2001), either because the decision makers are unaware of their existence or because they consider such models complex. According to the decision makers, the valuation models are important, but not determining factors in the decision-making process; their application is rather deemed as a parameter for the negotiation process. The decision makers also ranked the following criteria as the most impacting in the valuation process: the management team and their competences, product and market features, as well as criteria of the fund, all of them previously reported by Muzyka et al. (1996). This result is particularly relevant for two reasons. First, the decision makers consider the management capability as the most important criterion, which draws on their assumption that such capability is crucial for maximizing the chances of implementation of a project. Second, differently from Muzyka et al.s (1996) findings, the decision makers of the present research did not regard the criteria of the fund as secondary. This is probably related to the specialization and/or regionalization of the investment portfolio as well as to particularities in the Brazilian legislation, which sets limits for the target companies.