Buyer-Led Valuation Webinar with Adam Smith
Paying a price that only works if everything goes right is not a valuation discipline. It is optimism with a spreadsheet attached.
In this session, Adam Smith — a Managing Director at Valuation Research Corporation with over 20 years of valuation experience, including stints as a Practice Fellow at FASB and Technical Director at the IVSC — breaks down the mechanics of buyer-led valuation. This is not a primer on DCF theory. It is a practical look at the decisions acquirers actually face: how to separate what a business is worth on its own from what it is worth to you specifically, and how to identify which synergies you are effectively giving away before you even get to the table.
The session covers the income and market approaches in real deal context, the distinction between shared and buyer-specific value creation, how to frame valuation as a negotiable range rather than a single number, and where earnout structures come from when buyer and seller cannot agree on a scenario.
Live Q&A at the end — bring your deal questions.
What You'll Learn
How to separate standalone intrinsic value from strategic value — and why conflating them is how buyers overpay
The three questions every acquirer must answer before anchoring to a price
Which synergies are already priced in by the market (and which ones you actually get to keep)
How to build a valuation range, not a single number, and use the spread as a negotiating tool
When and how earnouts bridge a gap — and the three ways they go wrong post-close
How sellers adjust EBITDA and why those adjustments can skew your comp analysis if you are not paying attention
Who Should Attend
Corporate development leaders, strategy and finance professionals supporting acquisitions, and anyone responsible for building or reviewing a deal model.
Speaker Blurb
Kison Patel – Founder, M&A Science | Chairman, DealRoom
Kison built DealRoom to ~$10M ARR and has led M&A execution across hundreds of transactions. He founded M&A Science to extract and share the patterns strong buyers use to win deals, turning practitioner experience into searchable, reusable intelligence.
Adam Smith - Managing Director at Valuation Research Corporation (VRC)
Adam leads national office operations and advises acquirers on business valuation, intangible asset assessment, and deal-related financial reporting. He brings over 20 years of valuation practice, including two years as a Practice Fellow at FASB specializing in fair value issues and two years as Technical Director of Business Valuation Standards at the International Valuation Standards Council in London. Before joining VRC in October 2025, he spent over two decades at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds the ASA and ABV designations. His perspective on valuation is shaped not by textbook methodology but by the standards-level conversations that define how valuations are actually used in deal contexts.
Member Access
M&A Science members get:
Full session recording access inside the Membership library
Session takeaways (key insights organized for practitioners)
Access to the broader M&A Science member library (plays, templates, and real-world frameworks)
If you want access: Become an M&A Scientist. Join the community of the best practitioners in M&A.
→ Membership: $995/year → mascience.com/membership
FAQs
Who is this for?
Corporate development professionals, strategy and finance leaders who support acquisitions, and anyone responsible for building or reviewing a deal model. If you are running or advising on acquisitions, this session is relevant.
Will the recording be available?
Yes. The recording will be available in DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, for members. Non-members can register to attend live.
How do I submit a question?
Submit your question at registration. Kison reviews submissions and may bring selected questions into the conversation live.
Is this free?
This event is free, but recordings are only accessible in DealPilot. Membership is $995/year at mascience.com/membership.
What is DealPilot, powered by M&A Science?
DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, is the deal guidance layer for buy-side teams — practitioner-built playbooks, frameworks, certification programs, and primary source intelligence from 400+ practitioners who have actually run the deals. $995/year at mascience.com/membership.