"Valuation means assigning an object a value from an order or preference structure that corresponds to its degree of preferability with regard to a goal." (Jacob, Allgemeine Business Administration, 5th ed., 1988, p. 46)

The process of valuation is usually characterised in this or a similar way in business management literature, and such a description is abstract enough in terms of its meaning to be widely accepted by academics and practitioners. The task of business valuation as a sub-discipline of business administration is above all to fill the framework thus defined with regard to the valuation object "company" with life in a suitable form by providing the valuer with concrete recommendations for action to solve his individual valuation problem.

There are plenty of suggestions for this in the relevant literature. They range from simple "rules of thumb" and capital value-based future success calculations to mathematically complex valuation models based on option pricing theory, which are therefore sometimes avoided in practice.

After an introductory discussion of the concept of value, this course will take an in-depth look at various methods of company valuation under uncertainty and their theoretical foundations. The focus will be on the various forms of the future earnings value model, including the dividend discount model, the discounted cash flow model and the residual income model.