Achieving Fair Value (eBook)

Mark C. Scott graduated with a First Class Honours Degree from Christ Church College, Oxford. He completed an M.Phil at Cambridge University and an MBA at Harvard Business School. He originally trained as a management consultant, working for Michael Porter at Monitor Company, and subsequently joined WPP Group plc, the world's largest marketing services group. In 1998 Mark left WPP to help form Lighthouse Global Network, a start-up marketing services group acquired in 2000 by Cordiant Communications in a deal valued at $600m. Mark is a director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, and continues to be involved in the consolidation of professional services firms. He is the author of four books with John Wiley & Sons including The Professional Service Firm and Value Drivers.

Acknowledgements v

The fair value process vi

Introduction: What is ''fair value'' and why does it matter? 1

Part One: The Imperative for a Fair Value Strategy 7

1 Getting the goals right 9

What should management be trying to achieve on behalf of shareholders?

2 Why do the markets get it wrong? 21

Why do markets fail to identify fair value?

3 Understanding the institutional fund manager 47

Why do fund managers behave as they do and what can management do about it?

Part Two: The Building Blocks of Fair Value 69

4 Towards a fair value strategy 71

Understanding the fair value process

5 Determining fair value 81

How do you know when your company is fairly valued?

6 Targeting value-determining investors 119

Identifying the shareholders that matter

7 Profiling value-determining investors 135

Getting to know the culprits

Part Three: Delivering a Fair Value Strategy 147

8 Towards fair value levers 149

Knowing a good lever from a bad lever

9 Deciding how much to tell investors 163

When ignorance is not bliss

10 Deciding how to tell investors 187

The art of managing communications channels

11 The role of management quality 201

Setting the fair value context

Part Four: The Challenge of Managing for Fair Value 221

12 Managing a fair value strategy 223

The challenge of coordination

13 What to expect from the next decade 231

Bibliography 238

Index 242

"Outlines a systematic process for identifying, understanding and influencing..." (Long Range Planning, August 2006)