Mark To Model
Categories: Accounting
A company needs to know how much each one of its assets are worth. It's information the company needs to put on balance sheet, and will impact other financial statements.
But it isn't always easy to figure out the value of certain assets. If the assets don't get sold a lot (meaning a liquid market in similar items doesn't exist that can be used as a reference), the company has to make some guesses.
However, the company can't just make stuff up. It can't say a couch in the break room, which it originally found in a dumpster, is worth $10 million because "there aren't many couches like it." The firm has to use some rational valuation method.
The mark-to-model approach is one of these valuation methods. The company sets up a model to price the asset...a mathematical equation meant to compute its value based on certain market indicators. This process usually works best in cases of complicated financial instruments. As a hedging strategy, the company owns options to buy convertible stock denominated in Iraqi dinar, with a contingent cross-hedge protecting the risk of a decline in the dinar's value versus the euro. These positions would be hard to value and impossible to unwind quickly. So instead, the company creates a model to approximate an appropriate value. It then uses that value for its financial statements...the essence of the mark-to-model approach.
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Finance: What is mark to market?2 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is mark-to-market?
alright well Google was private for a long time before it went public public [Google timeline appears]
mutual funds bought the shares of the company when it was private, the company
did a few later stage B C and D rounds before going public in 2004 and each
iteration those subsequent rounds valued the company more highly so a mutual fund
invested say 20 million dollars in the B round they would have seen the C round
done at maybe double the valuation and while that mutual fund would then
mark to market or mark up their twenty million dollar investment to now be
worth forty million dollars even though the stock of goog was not yet publicly
traded and then it came along the D round which was done at triple the [D round investment appears]
valuation of the C round so then those shares of goog would have to be again
marked up or marked to the new current market valuation which was three times
the previous rounds valuation of 40 million aka a hundred twenty million
bucks today eventually the company did go public and there was no longer need [Google stock price rises on graph]
to mark its value to the market because well the market valued it basically
every second of the trading day if you want to learn more about all this stuff
well then you can just you know google it