Real Options Analysis Course

Praise for Real Options Analysis Course "Dr. Mun's latest book is a logical extension of the theory and application presented in Real Options Analysis. More specifically, the Real Options Analysis Course presents numerous real options examples and provides the reader with step-by-step problem-solving techniques. After having read the book, readers will better understand the underlying theory and the opportunities for applying real option theory in corporate decision-making." -Chris D. Treharne, President, Gibraltar Business Appraisals, Inc. "This text provides an excellent follow up to Dr. Mun's first book, Real Options Analysis. The cases in Real Options Analysis Course provide numerous examples of how the use of real options and the Real Options Analysis Toolkit software can assist in the valuation of strategic and managerial flexibility in a variety of arenas." -Charles T. Hardy, PhD, Chief Financial Officer & Director of Business Development, Panorama Research, Inc. "Most of us come to real options from the perspective of our own areas of expertise. Mun's great skill with this book is in making real options analysis understandable, relevant, and immediately applicable to the field within which you are working." -Robert Fourt, Partner, Gerald Eve (UK) "Mun provides a practical step-by-step guide to applying simulation and real options analysis-invaluable to those of us who are no longer satisfied with conventional valuation approaches alone." -Fred Kohli, Head of Portfolio Management, Syngenta Crop Protection Ltd. (Switzerland)

"Mun demystifies real options analysis and delivers a powerful, pragmatic guide for decision-makers and practitioners alike. Finally, there is a book that equips professionals to easily recognize, value, and seize real options in the world around them." --Jim Schreckengast, Senior VP, R&D Strategy, Gemplus International SA, France Completely revised and updated to meet the challenges of today's dynamic business environment, Real Options Analysis, Second Edition offers you a fresh look at evaluating capital investment strategies by taking the strategic decision-making process into consideration. This comprehensive guide provides both a qualitative and quantitative description of real options; the methods used in solving real options; why and when they are used; and the applicability of these methods in decision making.

In the past, corporate investment decisions were cut and dried. Buy a new machine that is more efficient, make more products costing a certain amount, and if the benefits outweigh the costs, execute the investment. Hire a larger pool of sales associates, expand the current geographical area, and if the marginal increase in forecast sales revenues exceeds the additional salary and implementation costs, start hiring. Need a new manufacturing plant? Show that the construction costs can be recouped quickly and easily by the increase in revenues the plant will generate through new and improved products, and the initiative is approved. However, real-life business conditions are a lot more complicated. Your firm decides to go with an e-commerce strategy, but multiple strategic paths exist. Which path do you choose? What are the options you have? If you choose the wrong path, how do you get back on the right track? How do you value and prioritize the paths that exist? You are a venture capitalist firm with multiple business plans to consider. How do you value a start-up firm with no proven track record? How do you structure a mutually beneficial investment deal? What is the optimal timing to a second or third round of financing? This chapter provides a novel approach to applying real options to answering these issues and more.

Real Options Analysis, Third Edition, provides a novel view of evaluating capital investment strategies by taking into consideration the strategic decision-making process. The book provides a qualitative and quantitative description of real options, the methods used in solving real options, why and when they are used, and the applicability of these methods in decision making. In addition, multiple business cases and real-life applications are discussed. These discussions present and frame the real options problems, as well as introduce a stepwise quantitative process developed by the author for solving these problems using the different methodologies inherent in real options. Included are technical presentations of models and approaches used as well as their theoretical and mathematical justifications. The book covers the qualitative discussions of real options; the quantitative analysis and mathematical concepts; and practical applications of real options. The first part of the book looks at the qualitative nature of real options, providing actual business cases and scenarios of real options in the industry, as well as high-level explanations of how real options provide the much-needed insights in decision making. The second part of the book looks at the step-by-step quantitative analysis, complete with worked-out examples and mathematical formulae. The third part illustrates the use of the Real Options Valuation's Super Lattice Solver software and Risk Simulator software both developed by the author. In this section, more detailed business cases are solved using the software.This book is targeted at both the uninitiated professional as well as those well-versed in real options applications. It is also applicable for use as a second-year M.B.A. level textbook or introductory Ph.D. reference book.

A comprehensive guide to understanding the implications andapplications of valuing employee stock options in light of the newFAS 123 requirements Due to the new requirements of the Proposed Statement of FinancialAccounting Standards (FAS 123) released by the Financial AccountingStandards Board (FASB)-namely the fact that employee servicesreceived in exchange for equity instruments be recognized infinancial statements-companies are now scrambling to learn how tovalue and expense employee stock options (ESOs). Based on authorDr. Johnathan Mun's consulting and advisory work with the FASBconsulting projects with several Fortune 500 firms, ValuingEmployee Stock Options provides readers with a comprehensive lookat this complex issue. Filled with valuable information on binomial lattice andclosed-form modeling techniques, Valuing Employee Stock Options canhelp financial professionals make informed decisions whenattempting to ascertain the fair-market value of ESOs under the newrequirements. Johnathan Mun, PhD, MBA, MS, CFC, FRM (San Francisco, CA), is VicePresident of Analytical Services at Decisioneering, Inc., themakers of Crystal Ball analytical software. He is also the authorof Applied Risk Analysis (0-471-47885-7), Real Options Analysis(0-471-25696-X), and Real Options Analysis Course (0-471-43001-3),all of which are published by Wiley.

This book sets out to reframe the theory of real options so that it can be used to support environmental investments for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Climate change policy often involves making decisions that concern extended time periods, and doing so under considerable uncertainty. By expanding and broadening the framework of real options, this book first introduces readers to new ways of quantifying investment decisions that can much more effectively address the shape and size of the uncertainty than traditional approaches using Net Present Value. In turn, the second part of the book applies this new theoretical framework to climate change policy by presenting a number of examples, and by providing a general perspective on investment decisions related to climate change and how to prioritize them.

Explores real option theory applied in practice Real options are quickly becoming the valuation and decision-making method of choice for many companies, including oil and gas companies, utilities and natural resource companies, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, Internet companies, and many others. Real Options in Practice allows readers to view the world of real options from the vantage point of a corporate practitioner applying real option valuation techniques on a regular basis. Expert Marion Brach describes the challenges of implementing a real option framework in practice within a corporate setting. Touching on the real options most firms care about, Real Options in Practice identifies the classic types of real options-deferral, abandonment, switching, expansion, and compound-and explores the main concepts critical to understanding real option theory. Through Brach's own three-step real option valuation method readers will learn how the theory of real options is now being applied to drive better, more profitable corporate decision-making. Marion A. Brach, MD, MBA (Hagen, Germany), has undertaken financial valuation of business opportunities and acquisitions using scenario and real option valuation in the biotech industry. A recognized expert on real option theory and practice, Brach received her MBA from the Manchester Business School and frequently speaks at real option seminars.

Comprehensive in scope, Real Options reviews current techniques of capital budgeting and details an approach (based on the pricing of options) that provides a means of quantifying the elusive elements of managerial flexibility in the face of unexpected changes in the market. In the 1970s and the 1980s, developments in the valuation of capital-investment opportunities based on options pricing revolutionized capital budgeting. Managerial flexibility to adapt and revise future decisions in order to capitalize on favorable future opportunities or to limit losses has proven vital to long-term corporate success in an uncertain and changing marketplace. In this book Lenos Trigeorgis, who has helped shape the field of real options, brings together a wealth of previously scattered knowledge and research on the new flexibility in corporate resource allocation and in the evaluation of investment alternatives brought about by the shift from static cash-flow approaches to the more dynamic paradigm of real options—an approach that incorporates decisions on whether to defer, expand, contract, abandon, switch use, or otherwise alter a capital investment. Comprehensive in scope, Real Options reviews current techniques of capital budgeting and details an approach (based on the pricing of options) that provides a means of quantifying the elusive elements of managerial flexibility in the face of unexpected changes in the market. Also discussed are the strategic value of new technology, project interdependence, and competitive interaction. The ability to value real options has so dramatically altered the way in which corporate resources are allocated that future textbooks on capital budgeting will bear little resemblance to those of even the recent past. Real Options is a pioneer in this area, coupling a coherent picture of how option theory is used with practical insights in into real-world applications.