Firstly, the Precedent Transactions methodology is likely to give a higher valuation than the Comparable Company methodology. This is because when companies are purchased, the target’s shareholders are typically paid a price that is higher than the target’s current stock price. Technically speaking, the purchase price includes a “control premium.” Valuing companies based on M&A transactions (a control based valuation methodology) will include this control premium and therefore likely result in a higher valuation than a public market valuation (minority interest based valuation methodology).
The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis will also likely result in a higher valuation than the Comparable Company analysis because DCF is also a control based methodology and because most projections tend to be pretty optimistic. Whether DCF will be higher than Precedent Transactions is debatable but is fair to say that DCF valuations tend to be more variable because the DCF is so sensitive to a multitude of inputs or assumptions.