The Keystone Kops of Valuation: Lazard, Evercore and the TSLA/SCTY Deal

When Tesla announced its intent to buy Solar City, Elon Musk was exposed to charges of conflict of interest, since he controlled both companies. The boards of the two companies, aware of the potential for litigation, hired bankers (Tesla hired Evercore and Solar City hired Lazard) to value the two companies and their attempts at valuation are summarized in the Tesla prospectus. In this webcast, I take a look at these critical look at these valuations and conclude that even by the woeful standards of banking valuations, these fall short. Slides: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/pdfiles/blog/KeystoneKops.pdf Blog Post: http://bit.ly/2cH68Ny