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What a business will earn and the competing return on other investments determine its selling price.
Let's look at an example :
If Hartalega earned $100,000 a year before taxes, year after year, what would investor be willing to pay for it? You'd have to do some comparison shopping. Let's say that AAA-rated corporate bonds are paying 10%. This would mean that investor have to buy $1 million worth of bonds to produce $100,000 a year ( $1 million x 10% = $100,000 ).
If investor had to pay $1.5 million for the business and it was earning $100,000, the rate of return would drop to 6.7% ($100,000/$1.5 million = 6.7%). But if investor bought $1.5 million worth of bonds that paid 10%, you would be earning $150,000 a year ( $1.5 million x 10% = $150,000).
Why would you pay $1.5 million for Hartalega when you could get a far better rate of return by buying bonds?
The business would only become attractive at or below a selling price of $1 million. If investor paid more than $1 million, you'd be better off buying the bonds. In this situation, that bonds were earning 10% would create downward pressure on the selling price of the business.
Now let's drop the interest rate that bonds pay to 5%. If investor bought $1.5 million worth of 5% bonds, you would only earn $75,000 a year ( $1.5 million x 5% = $75,000).
That isn't as good as the $100,000 a year you would be earning if you paid $1.5 million for the business.