Comparable Company Analysis

Comps should be similar in industry, size, geography, growth profile, and margin profile. 5–10 names is typical. For Coca-Cola you'd use PepsiCo, Keurig Dr Pepper, Monster, Nestle SA — not Tesla.

If a target has no perfect public peer (common in mid-market deals), you widen the screen and explain the differences in the write-up.

For each comp: pull EV (market cap + debt − cash from latest 10-Q), pull LTM and forward EBITDA / Revenue / EPS. Strip out one-time items, stock-based comp adjustments, and unusual gains/losses to get a "clean" multiple.

Display in a table with median and mean. Use the median to value the target (mean gets pulled by outliers).