ABSTRACT: (THE VALUE RELEVANCE OF BRAND VALUATION). The reports published by independent parties (i.e. brand agency) are often used to provide an estimation of brands due to the lack of literature and best practices regarding which brand valuation method is more value relevant and more reliable than the others. In the last years, brand valuation debate is growing in importance because of the need to provide a value of intangibles for different purposes such as property transfer, purchase price allocation and tax benefits (i.e. Patent Box). However, different valuation methods are used by brand agencies. The purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, we aim to understand whether brand valuation related to listed companies provided by Interbrand, Brand Finance and Millward Brown (BrandZ) is value relevant and therefore whether these brand valuations are taken into consideration by investors in their decision-making process. We follow the approach proposed by Barth et al. (1998), which assesses the value relevance of brands using 2SLS (Two Stage Least Square) model. Secondly, we assess which of the three methods reflects the stock markets in a better way.. To prove this diverse appreciation by investors, we modified the regression model adding variables which can reflect the different valuations. We analyse a sample of 71 worldwide brands valuated by Interbrand, Brand Finance and Millward Brown from 2013 to 2015 and published on their global, sectorial and geographical annual reports. The results show that brand valuation provided by the three independent agencies is value relevant; in addition, they reveal that Brand Finance method, based on the royalty relief approach, is more value relevant than the others and therefore it is better reflected into stock prices. This last finding is consistent with previous works focused on the companies’ valuation. This study can contribute to the extant literature on value relevance by providing evidence on the impact of stock prices of brand agencies’ valuation. Furthermore, it can provide useful findings to the current debate regarding the reliability of different brand valuation methods.
KEYWORDS: Brand valuation, Value relevance, Intangible assets
