I founded Sarah Lawrence SA, a retailer of women\u2019s apparel, in 1982 and served as the CEO for 37 years. During these years we experienced both successes and failures. We did a lot of things well, but we also made mistakes. I regret none.<\/p>\n
Except one.<\/p>\n
I deeply regret that at least until 2007 I rarely, if ever, spent serious time evaluating the intrinsic value of my company at different periods of time-if not every year. There is no excuse, as I was formally trained in Business School to do so. I guess I hadn\u2019t realized the importance of this valuation to a CEO and all the ways it can be used, until then.<\/p>\n
In hindsight, I can\u2019t help but wonder. What kind of CEO was I that did not know my company\u2019s real worth?<\/p>\n
It was a serious omission, and I paid dearly for it. At 3 different occasions I bought out the shares of 3 of my partners and to this day I still don\u2019t know whether I overpaid and whether I was fair to them and myself.
\nWorst of all, the negotiations to sell Sarah Lawrence in 2006 fell through, because I was neither firm nor clear about the price I was asking and the reasons for asking it.<\/p>\n
Pity, as it resulted in a major loss that could have been prevented, had I realized the power that comes with knowing the true value of one\u2019s company.<\/p>\n
That was the trigger that led me to attend a seminar in New York to refresh and upgrade my knowledge on Valuation and Business Strategy. From that point on evaluating my company\u2019s intrinsic value became a yearly routine. I was finally successful in selling it.<\/p>\n
Today, if you ask me how many of the CEOs that I know, go through the exercise of calculating the intrinsic value of their own company, I would say not many, even though it should definitely be an important responsibility and priority of theirs.<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t it about time that we start thinking about it?<\/p>\n
To be continued…<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I founded Sarah Lawrence SA, a retailer of women\u2019s apparel, in 1982 and served as the CEO for 37 years. During these years we experienced both successes and failures. We did a lot of things well, but we also made mistakes. I regret none. Except one. I deeply regret that at least until 2007 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n