Comps Explorer
Any comps table is an argument about which companies are alike, and the argument is usually made silently: eight names appear, a median falls out, and nothing records why the ninth was left out. Here the universe is a rule you can check, every candidate is scored on the dimensions you would have to defend out loud, and the median moves as you curate the set.
Trading comps start from every company the SEC files under the same industry code, ranked by size. Precedent transactions come from Schedule 13E-3 filings, the form a target files when it is taken private, with the adviser’s own board materials linked on the closest deals.
Why the universe starts with a code
Every company that files with the SEC is given a Standard Industrial Classification code, so “everyone filed under the same industry” is a rule rather than a preference, and the right place to begin an argument about who belongs. It is also visibly imperfect: the code that holds Adobe holds a hundred companies that sell nothing like it, and watching most of a screen fall away is the first thing this teaches.
What the score is, and is not
It weighs industry closeness, size, margin, growth and, for a transaction, how long ago it was signed. It knows nothing about what a company actually sells, who its customers are, or whether one of its three divisions is the whole story. Treat a high score as a candidate worth reading, never as a name you can defend without reading it.
Where the figures come from
Revenue and EBITDA are the latest trailing figures a company has reported, and enterprise value is built from a live price plus net debt rather than taken from anywhere. For a transaction, the figures are the last full year the target reported before its filing, so a margin here is a pre-deal margin, not a pro forma one.
Keep going
All labsNext in Valuation · 12 min
EV to Equity Bridge
Where two analysts who agree on EBITDA still end up far apart. Net debt, pensions, NCI, leases and the treasury stock method, each opening to its own inputs.
Deal Simulations · 15 min
Capital Stack Challenge
Finance a real buyout. Size the revolver, term loans, notes, PIK and equity against the lender caps of the day, hold the structure through a shock, then see how the sponsor actually did it, with every figure linked to the filing.