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Hi, I'm working on a project that measures foreign direct investment. I'm currently researching methodologies to determine the market value of foreign direct investment in privately held companies. I have a database of about 4000 private companies that have foreign investors who own at least 10% of the equity of the private company. I have book value estimates of the foreign investment in those companies but need a way to convert it to market value. The available financials I have for the companies are:Total AssetsTotal liabilitiesTotal shareholders equityTotal revenueTtotal expensesTotal net income/lossTotal retained earningsTotal contributed surplus# of shares & book value of outstanding (common a& pref.) and the distribution of those shares to foreign holdersFrom my research so far I've come across DCF and Relative valuation as possible methods to estimate market values, however I don't think I have enough financial info. to do a DCF valuation, and it would be unfeasible in terms of time and industry/company knowledge to determine the appropriate comparable firms to apply a relative valuation to such a large # of companies. So I'm wondering if anyone here might have some suggestions on other methodologies to use, or suggestions on modifying dcf or relative valuation to meet my specs.?Thanks

Real options is an alternative methodologyBut i think it is yet to become a widely accepted practice.The document below might help youhttp://www.privateequityvaluation.com

One option is to look at relative valuation versus the whole population. If you have any data about line of business at all, you can throw it into your analysis and break down the list by sector. It's fun to use regression studies to see what actually explains the variability in the observed multiples (country, sector, historical/projected growth, size, ...).You can also coble together some sort of DCF based on industry average growth rates, or by projecting past growth rate forward over a finite horizon before taking a terminal value.You could also look at an excess earnings approach, which primarily depends on book value and return on assets.In the sloppiest of all worlds, a company is worth:V = E1*(1-k)/(r - ROE*k)V == valueE1 == Earnings in the next period, which is like trailing earnings projected ahead one year. The yearly growth rate of earnings is ROE*k in this model.k == Earnings Retained In Each Period (meaning the % of earnings reinvested in the business and therefore adding to next period's Book Value)ROE == Return on Equityr == discount rateFrom the description of your database, I'm guessing that you will have a lot of special cases to deal with. Good luck.You might want to look in a couple of Damodaran's books, he's a prolific NYU professor who works in this area.