M&A topic guide
Comparable-company analysis
Choose comparable public companies, review trading multiples and financial definitions, and support a valuation range.
The decision to make
Which public companies are comparable, and what valuation range does the reviewed peer evidence support?
Choose peers before choosing a multiple
The Public Company Comps Workbench combines a reusable analysis template with a dated Capital IQ reference for 254 public companies across 12 sectors. Select peers for how they make money, their scale, growth, margins, capital intensity, and risk.
Make the comparison reproducible
Document inclusions and exclusions. Reconcile fiscal periods, currency, earnings definitions, and enterprise-value adjustments. Review negative or unusually small denominators before interpreting a high multiple. Use the workbook’s peer summaries, quartiles, and outlier flags as evidence to review.
The populated reference is public-company trading data. A precedent-transaction comparison would require separate transaction evidence: announcement date, stake acquired, consideration, control, and the financial measure used. The workbook does not contain a populated precedent-deal database.
Translate the evidence into a range
Explain which peers and metrics support the selected range and why the subject company belongs within it. Carry that range into the valuation analysis alongside cash-flow and downside evidence. Keep any buyer-created synergy in the Synergy Underwriting & Value Bridge.
Transaction stages · All ten topics · Downloads
By Mike Ye · Updated September 10, 2026