Business valuation methods

What it is

The page of every company with published financial statements shows an "indicative value" as a range of two amounts. The range is computed automatically from the financial data the company itself filed with the Greek business registry (GEMI) and from the assumptions on this page. It is not a valuation under the International Valuation Standards (IVS), it is not intended for a transaction, a tax filing or legal proceedings, and it does not replace a certified valuer or a statutory auditor.

Data used

• The company's last three fiscal years with profit in the data, as extracted from the published financial statements. If fewer exist, those available are used. Where this page says "average", it means a weighted average with more weight on recent years: 3, 2 and 1 for three years, 2 and 1 for two, so that a growing business is not valued on the profit of a small first year.
• Profit after tax, equity, operating result (EBIT), depreciation, borrowings and cash. Where the data has only profit before tax, profit after tax is estimated at 22% tax.
• The company's main NACE activity code, to select the sector group. Without a code, or with a code outside the groups of the table, the market multiple is used.

No estimate is computed for sole proprietorships, for branches of foreign companies (their figures belong to the parent), for figures in a currency other than the euro, for companies without equity or revenue in their data, and for financial and real-estate companies (NACE 64 to 66 and 68), where value does not follow from operating profit.

Methods

The range comes from methods 2, 3 and 4, which rest on earnings (income and market approaches of IVS 105). It is the lowest and the highest of these amounts. Method 1, book value (cost approach), is shown separately and is not part of the range: for a profitable business book equity does not say what it is worth, and inside the range it made the range either uselessly wide or too high for companies with large assets and small profit. On the company page, the individual amounts are shown on hover over the range. Amounts at or below zero are shown there but are not used in the range.

1. Book value (equity), not in the range

The equity of the latest fiscal year as stated in the balance sheet. It is the minimum transfer value of unlisted shares under article 42 of the Greek Income Tax Code (law 4172/2013). It excludes everything the balance sheet does not record.

2. Capitalised earnings

The average profit after tax of the years used, divided by a rate of 10.6%, times the size factor. The rate is the sum of the Greek ten-year bond yield (3.5%, estimate) and the equity risk premium for Greece (7.1%, Damodaran, July 2026).

3. Earnings multiple

The same average profit multiplied by 10.9, times the size factor. The multiple is the median price-to-earnings ratio of non-financial companies listed on the Athens Exchange (15.5) with a 30% discount for the illiquidity of unlisted shares.

Net cash, i.e. cash less borrowings, is added to methods 2 and 3 when it is positive. Earnings price the activity, not the money the business already holds. It is added only when the latest fiscal year has borrowing data: without it, adding cash would assume zero debt. When net cash is negative it is not deducted, because earnings already bear the interest on the borrowings.

4. Sector EBITDA multiple

The average EBITDA (operating result plus depreciation) of the years used, multiplied by the sector group multiple and the size factor, less net debt (borrowings less cash). Net debt is taken from the most recent fiscal year that has borrowing data. If no year has borrowing data but the latest year has total liabilities, those are used in place of borrowings. This is conservative, because liabilities also include suppliers and taxes, and it is stated next to the method. The method is applied when there is an operating result, or profit before tax together with interest, and borrowing or liability data.

When depreciation is missing from the data, it is estimated as a share of revenue: the median depreciation-to-revenue ratio of the sector group, measured on 15,712 fiscal years of Greek companies (whole market 1.6%). The same applies when depreciation is zero for a company with revenue above €500 thousand in a sector where depreciation is at least 3% of revenue, because that is almost always a gap in the extraction. In a test on years where depreciation is known, estimated EBITDA deviated from actual by 10% at the median, with no systematic bias. The estimate is stated next to the method.

Size factor

Methods 2, 3 and 4 are multiplied by the same size factor. Size is measured by average EBITDA, or by average profit before tax where EBITDA is not computed. The Argos Index measures acquisitions of €15 million to €500 million, and smaller businesses sell at lower multiples. Points of the factor: €250 thousand × 0.50, €1 million × 0.65, €5 million × 0.85, €20 million × 1.00. Below the first point the first factor applies and above the last point the last one. Between points the factor changes smoothly, so that a small difference in size does not cause a jump in value.

Earnings and EBITDA

Methods 2 and 3 rest on net profit, method 4 on EBITDA. The literature does not show EBITDA to be the more reliable base: comparing the accuracy of multiples on listed companies, historical earnings explain prices better than cash flow measures and EBITDA, and this ranking holds in almost every industry (Liu, Nissim and Thomas, 2002). For that reason both bases are used.

The two bases do not give the same level. EBITDA is measured before interest, tax and depreciation, and for Greek companies it is about 1.6 times net profit at the median. In sectors with a high multiple, method 4 often sets the upper bound. In sectors with a low multiple, such as construction or transport, the upper bound is often method 3.

When only net profit is available, without operating result or interest, method 4 is not computed. Estimating EBITDA directly from net profit with the sector ratio was tested and gave a median error of 19%, twice that of the estimate from operating result.

Multiples by sector group

The level of the multiples is the Argos Mid-Market Index, which measures acquisition prices of European small and medium-sized companies: 8.6 times EBITDA (Q1 2026). The relative position of each sector comes from Aswath Damodaran's EV/EBITDA multiples of European listed companies by industry (January 2026), weighted by the number of companies and divided by the multiple of the whole market excluding financials (10.77). The relative position is capped between 0.7 and 1.4, because the high multiples of sectors such as software reflect growth rates of listed companies that the data of a small business does not support. The group multiple is 8.6 times the relative position, before the size factor. The column of companies with positive EBITDA is used.

Listed companies

For companies listed on the Athens Exchange the company page shows market capitalisation, i.e. share price times the number of shares, with the date of the price. For a listed company the market price is the valuation. The indicative estimate of this page is shown on hover, as the value of the company if it were not listed. It is usually lower, because the assumptions carry discounts for illiquidity and size, and because listed companies price expected growth.

When it is not computed

The company page shows "Not computed", with the reason, when any of the following holds:

• only one fiscal year with profit is available;
• one of the years used is loss-making or has zero profit;
• equity is negative;
• in some year net profit exceeds revenue, which usually means a holding company or a one-off gain;
• net debt is more than 8 times average EBITDA, because the equity value is then the remainder of a large deduction and a small error in earnings changes the result a lot;
• the data cannot be right: negative liabilities, equity above total assets, or profit after tax above profit before tax.

In these cases a range would mislead. The same applies to the exclusions of the section "Data used".

What is not included

• Anything the balance sheet does not record: contracts, customers, self-developed software and know-how, trademarks, licences.
• Owner or manager compensation not recorded as salary. In small companies, profit often includes the owner's own work, and a buyer does not pay a multiple for it. When payroll is below 10% of revenue, the company page notes it. In the valuation calculator, when the pre-tax margin exceeds 60%, it asks what partners working without a salary would earn as employees, and deducts it from profit before tax of each year, as the Greek tax circular POL 1055/2003 deducts an "owner's salary".
• The current value of fixed assets. Book value is used, not a market appraisal.
• Anything known only to management: prospects, pending matters, agreements.
• Errors of the automatic extraction of financial data from the published documents.

Updating the assumptions

Damodaran's multiples are updated every January and the Argos Index every quarter. The assumptions on this page are updated at the same frequency and the date of each source is stated next to it. Table last generated: 2026-09-16.

Sources

• International Valuation Standards Council, IVS 105 Valuation Approaches and Methods.
• Liu J., Nissim D., Thomas J. (2002), Equity Valuation Using Multiples, Journal of Accounting Research 40(1), 135–172.
• Greek law 4172/2013, article 42, and circular POL 1032/2015 on the transfer value of unlisted shares.
• Aswath Damodaran, Enterprise Value Multiples by Sector, Europe, January 2026, and Country Risk Premiums, July 2026.
• Argos Mid-Market Index, Argos Wityu and Epsilon Research, first quarter of 2026.
• Athens Exchange, market capitalisations and published financial statements of listed companies.