Blog Archives

Can't get this woman out of my head

10/6/2019

To my wife's chagrin, I'm slightly obsessed with another woman. The other woman is smart, accomplished, and ... 76 years old.

Her name is Judy Faulkner. Here are some of her accomplishments:

Taught herself to code FORTRAN as an undergrad at Dickinson College.
One of the first in the US to earn a degree in Computer Science (U of Wisconsin, in the 1960s).
Founder of Epic Systems (an Electronic Health Records co. w $2.7b of revenue & worth $15-20b).
43% owner of the company, which remains private to this day.
Wealthiest self-made woman in the US (Forbes has her at #4, but their value on Epic is too low IMO).
One of the longest-tenured CEOs in business (40 years).
An extremely high Glassdoor approval ratings (93%, with 1,362 ratings).
Signer of the giving pledge, with plans to donate 99% of her fortune.

Perhaps now you understand why I think she's so cool.

10/1/2019

What multiple would you pay for a business with the following EBITDA profile?

To help you out a bit, allow me to include a couple more details:

The company is in an internet-related field (some advertising, some subscription revenue)
Their EBITDA growth has been generated with just a bit of net debt ($800m) and ~0 equity issuance
Capex requirements are fairly low - about $40-50m per year (ie, EBITDA converts to FCF pretty well)

Does 10x EBITDA sound like the right number?