From Country Equity Risk Premiums to

Corporate Equity Risk premiums

58

¨ Approach 1: Assume that every company in the country is

equally exposed to country risk. In this case,
¤ E(Return) = Riskfree Rate + CRP + Beta (Mature ERP)
¨ Approach 2: Assume that a company’s exposure to country
risk is similar to its exposure to other market risk.
¤ E(Return) = Riskfree Rate + Beta (Mature ERP+ CRP)
¨ Approach 3: Treat country risk as a separate risk factor and
allow firms to have different exposures to country risk
(perhaps based upon the proportion of their revenues come
from non-domestic sales)
¤ E(Return)=Riskfree Rate+ (Mature ERP) + l (CRP)
Mature ERP = Mature market Equity Risk Premium
CRP = Additional country risk premium

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 Approaches 1 & 2: Estimating country risk
premium exposure
59

¨ Location based CRP: The standard approach in valuation is to

attach a country risk premium to a company based upon its
country of incorporation. Thus, if you are an Indian company,
you are assumed to be exposed to the Indian country risk
premium. A developed market company is assumed to be
unexposed to emerging market risk.
¨ Operation-based CRP: There is a more reasonable modified
version. The country risk premium for a company can be
computed as a weighted average of the country risk
premiums of the countries that it does business in, with the
weights based upon revenues or operating income. If a
company is exposed to risk in dozens of countries, you can
take a weighted average of the risk premiums by region.
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 Operation based CRP: Single versus Multiple
Emerging Markets
60

¨ Single emerging market: Embraer, in 2004, reported that it derived 3% of

its revenues in Brazil and the balance from mature markets. The mature
market ERP in 2004 was 5% and Brazil’s CRP was 7.89%.

¨ Multiple emerging markets: Ambev, the Brazilian-based beverage

company, reported revenues from the following countries during 2011.

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 Extending to a multinational: Regional breakdown
Coca Cola’s revenue breakdown and ERP in 2012
61

Things to watch out for

1. Aggregation across regions. For instance, the Pacific region often includes Australia & NZ with Asia
2. Obscure aggregations including Eurasia and Oceania 61
 Two problems with these approaches..
62

¨ Focus just on revenues: To the extent that revenues are

the only variable that you consider, when weighting risk
exposure across markets, you may be missing other
exposures to country risk. For instance, an emerging
market company that gets the bulk of its revenues
outside the country (in a developed market) may still
have all of its production facilities in the emerging
market.
¨ Exposure not adjusted or based upon beta: To the extent
that the country risk premium is multiplied by a beta, we
are assuming that beta in addition to measuring
exposure to all other macro economic risk also measures
exposure to country risk.

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 A Production-based ERP: Royal Dutch Shell
in 2015
63

Country Oil & Gas Production % of Total ERP

Denmark 17396 3.83% 6.20%
Italy 11179 2.46% 9.14%
Norway 14337 3.16% 6.20%
UK 20762 4.57% 6.81%
Rest of Europe 874 0.19% 7.40%
Brunei 823 0.18% 9.04%
Iraq 20009 4.40% 11.37%
Malaysia 22980 5.06% 8.05%
Oman 78404 17.26% 7.29%
Russia 22016 4.85% 10.06%
Rest of Asia & ME 24480 5.39% 7.74%
Oceania 7858 1.73% 6.20%
Gabon 12472 2.75% 11.76%
Nigeria 67832 14.93% 11.76%
Rest of Africa 6159 1.36% 12.17%
USA 104263 22.95% 6.20%
Canada 8599 1.89% 6.20%
Brazil 13307 2.93% 9.60%
Rest of Latin America 576 0.13% 10.78%
Royal Dutch Shell 454326 100.00% 8.26%

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 Approach 3: Estimate a lambda for country risk
64

¨ Country risk exposure is affected by where you get your

revenues and where your production happens, but there are
a host of other variables that also affect this exposure,
including:
¤ Use of risk management products: Companies can use both options/futures
markets and insurance to hedge some or a significant portion of country risk.
¤ Government “national” interests: There are sectors that are viewed as vital to
the national interests, and governments often play a key role in these
companies, either officially or unofficially. These sectors are more exposed to
country risk.
¨ It is conceivable that there is a richer measure of country risk
that incorporates all of the variables that drive country risk in
one measure. That way my rationale when I devised
“lambda” as my measure of country risk exposure.

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A Revenue-based Lambda

¨ The factor “l” measures the relative exposure of a firm to country

risk. One simplistic solution would be to do the following:
l = % of revenues domesticallyfirm/ % of revenues domesticallyaverage firm
¨ Consider two firms – Tata Motors and Tata Consulting Services,
both Indian companies. In 2008-09, Tata Motors got about 91.37%
of its revenues in India and TCS got 7.62%. The average Indian firm
gets about 80% of its revenues in India:
l Tata Motors= 91%/80% = 1.14
l TCS= 7.62%/80% = 0.09
¨ There are two implications
¤ A company’s risk exposure is determined by where it does business and
not by where it is incorporated.
¤ Firms might be able to actively manage their country risk exposures

65
 A Price/Return based Lambda
66

ReturnEmbraer = 0.0195 + 0.2681 ReturnC Bond

ReturnEmbratel = -0.0308 + 2.0030 ReturnC Bond
Embraer versus C Bond: 2000-2003 Embratel versus C Bond: 2000-2003
40 100

80

20
60

40

Return on Embrat el
Return on Embraer

0
20

0
-20
-20

-40 -40

-60

-60 -80
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20

Return on C-Bond Return on C-Bond

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 Estimating a US Dollar Cost of Equity for
Embraer - September 2004
67

¨ Assume that the beta for Embraer is 1.07, and that the US $ riskfree rate
used is 4%. Also assume that the risk premium for the US is 5% and the
country risk premium for Brazil is 7.89%. Finally, assume that Embraer
gets 3% of its revenues in Brazil & the rest in the US.
¨ There are five estimates of $ cost of equity for Embraer:
¤ Approach 1: Constant exposure to CRP, Location CRP
n E(Return) = 4% + 1.07 (5%) + 7.89% = 17.24%
¤ Approach 2: Constant exposure to CRP, Operation CRP
n E(Return) = 4% + 1.07 (5%) + (0.03*7.89% +0.97*0%)= 9.59%
¤ Approach 3: Beta exposure to CRP, Location CRP
n E(Return) = 4% + 1.07 (5% + 7.89%)= 17.79%
¤ Approach 4: Beta exposure to CRP, Operation CRP
n E(Return) = 4% + 1.07 (5% +( 0.03*7.89%+0.97*0%)) = 9.60%
¤ Approach 5: Lambda exposure to CRP
n E(Return) = 4% + 1.07 (5%) + 0.27(7.89%) = 11.48%

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 Valuing Emerging Market Companies with
significant exposure in developed markets
68

¨ The conventional practice in investment banking is to add the

country equity risk premium on to the cost of equity for every
emerging market company, notwithstanding its exposure to
emerging market risk. Thus, in 2004, Embraer would have
been valued with a cost of equity of 17-18% even though it
gets only 3% of its revenues in Brazil. As an investor, which of
the following consequences do you see from this approach?
a. Emerging market companies with substantial exposure in developed
markets will be significantly over valued by analysts
b. Emerging market companies with substantial exposure in developed
markets will be significantly under valued by analysts
Can you construct an investment strategy to take advantage of the
mis-valuation? What would need to happen for you to make money
of this strategy?

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 Implied Equity Premiums
69

¨ For a start: If you know the price paid for an asset and have
estimates of the expected cash flows on the asset, you can
estimate the IRR of these cash flows. If you paid the price,
this is your expected return.
¨ Stock Price & Risk: If you assume that stocks are correctly
priced in the aggregate and you can estimate the expected
cashflows from buying stocks, you can estimate the expected
rate of return on stocks by finding that discount rate that
makes the present value equal to the price paid.
¨ Implied ERP: Subtracting out the riskfree rate should yield an
implied equity risk premium. This implied equity premium is
a forward-looking number and can be updated as often as
you want (every minute of every day, if you are so inclined).

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 Implied Equity Premiums: January 2008
70

¨ We can use the information in stock prices to back out how risk averse the market is and how much of a risk
premium it is demanding.
After year 5, we will assume that
earnings on the index will grow at
Between 2001 and 2007 Analysts expect earnings to grow 5% a year for the next 5 years. We 4.02%, the same rate as the entire
dividends and stock will assume that dividends & buybacks will keep pace..
buybacks averaged 4.02% Last year’s cashflow (59.03) growing at 5% a year economy (= riskfree rate).
of the index each year.
61.98 65.08 68.33 71.75 75.34

January 1, 2008
S&P 500 is at 1468.36
4.02% of 1468.36 = 59.03

¨ If you pay the current level of the index, you can expect to make a return of 8.39% on stocks (which is obtained by
solving for r in the following equation)
61.98 65.08 68.33 71.75 75.34 75.35(1.0402)
1468.36 = + + + + +
(1+ r) (1+ r) 2 (1+ r) 3 (1+ r) 4 (1+ r) 5 (r − .0402)(1+ r) 5
¨ Implied Equity risk premium = Expected return on stocks - Treasury bond rate = 8.39% - 4.02% = 4.37%

€
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 A year that made a difference.. The implied
premium in January 2009
71
Year Market value of index Dividends Buybacks Cash to equity Dividend yield Buyback yield Total yield
2001 1148.09 15.74 14.34 30.08 1.37% 1.25% 2.62%
2002 879.82 15.96 13.87 29.83 1.81% 1.58% 3.39%
2003 1111.91 17.88 13.70 31.58 1.61% 1.23% 2.84%
2004 1211.92 19.01 21.59 40.60 1.57% 1.78% 3.35%
2005 1248.29 22.34 38.82 61.17 1.79% 3.11% 4.90%
2006 1418.30 25.04 48.12 73.16 1.77% 3.39% 5.16%
2007 1468.36 28.14 67.22 95.36 1.92% 4.58% 6.49%
2008 903.25 28.47 40.25 68.72 3.15% 4.61% 7.77%
Normalized 903.25 28.47 24.11 52.584 3.15% 2.67% 5.82%

In 2008, the actual cash

returned to stockholders was After year 5, we will assume that
68.72. However, there was a earnings on the index will grow at
Analysts expect earnings to grow 4% a year for the next 5 years. We
41% dropoff in buybacks in 2.21%, the same rate as the entire
will assume that dividends & buybacks will keep pace..
Q4. We reduced the total economy (= riskfree rate).
buybacks for the year by that Last year’s cashflow (52.58) growing at 4% a year
amount.
54.69 56.87 59.15 61.52 63.98

54.69 56.87 59.15 61.52 63.98 63.98(1.0221)

January 1, 2009 903.25 = + + + + +
(1+ r) (1+ r) (1+ r) (1+ r) (1+ r) (r −.0221)(1+ r)5
2 3 4 5

S&P 500 is at 903.25

Adjusted Dividends & Expected Return on Stocks (1/1/09) = 8.64%
Buybacks for 2008 = 52.58 Riskfree rate = 2.21%
Equity Risk Premium = 6.43%
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 The Anatomy of a Crisis: Implied ERP from
September 12, 2008 to January 1, 2009
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 Equity Risk Premium: January 2020
73

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 And in 2020.. COVID effects
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 An Updated Estimate: ERP in 2022
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 76

2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
Implied Premiums in the US: 1960-2021

2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
Implied Premium for US Equity Market: 1960-2021

2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992

Year
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
1979
1978
1977
1976
1975
1974
1973
1972
1971
1970
1969
1968
1967
1966

Aswath Damodaran
1965
1964
1963
1962
1961
1960

7.00%

6.00%

5.00%

4.00%

3.00%

2.00%

1.00%

0.00%
Implied Premium
 Implied Premium versus Risk Free Rate
77

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 Equity Risk Premiums and Bond Default Spreads
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 Equity Risk Premiums and Cap Rates (Real
Estate)
79

Figure 18: Equity Risk Premiums, Bond Spreads and Real Estate Risk Premiuums
8.00%

6.00%

4.00%

2.00%

ERP

0.00% Baa Spread

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020
Real Estate RP

-2.00%

-4.00%

-6.00%

-8.00%

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 Why implied premiums matter?
80

¨ In many investment banks, it is common practice (especially

in corporate finance departments) to use historical risk
premiums (and arithmetic averages at that) as risk premiums
to compute cost of equity. If all analysts in the department
used the arithmetic average premium (for stocks over T.Bills)
for 1928-2021 of 8.49% to value stocks in January 2022, given
the implied premium of 4.24%, what are they likely to find?
a. The values they obtain will be too low (most stocks will look
overvalued)
b. The values they obtain will be too high (most stocks will look under
valued)
c. There should be no systematic bias as long as they use the same
premium to value all stocks.
¨ What if analysts are using the historical geometric average
premium of 5.13% from 1928 to 2020 as their ERP?

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 Which equity risk premium should you use?
81
If you assume this Premium to use
Premiums revert back to historical norms Historical risk premium
and your time period yields these norms

Market is correct in the aggregate or that Current implied equity risk premium
your valuation should be market neutral

Marker makes mistakes even in the Average implied equity risk premium over
aggregate but is correct over time time.
Predictor Correlation with implied Correlation with actual Correlation with actual return
premium next year return- next 5 years – next 10 years
Current implied premium 0.763 0.427 0.500
Average implied premium: Last 5 0.718 0.326 0.450
years
Historical Premium -0.497 -0.437 -0.454
Default Spread based premium 0.047 0.143 0.160

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