BVWire will attend a webinar tomorrow (July 21) by Jim Hitchner (Valuation Products and Services) who will respond to some severe criticisms Aswath Damodaran (New York University Stern School of Business) made during a recent BVR webinar. The professor had some choice words for certain inputs to the cost of capital, namely the size effect, company-specific risk premium, and some others (see our coverage here).

Wrong impression: Damodaran also made some remarks about total beta, which, when taken out of context, lead you to believe that he rejects that concept also. Damodaran publishes updated total betas on his website, and he includes them in his teachings and writings. He has remarked that some analysts use total beta in ways never intended, but he did not put it in the same boat with the concepts he strongly criticized.

We hope this point will be cleared up during tomorrow’s webinar (click here to register)—we’ll be listening!

Extra: A free recording of the Damodaran webinar that triggered all the fuss is available if you click here (it also focuses on how to assess the impacts of inflation in private-company valuations).