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18.4 Presenting Model Outputs

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Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst FMVA

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1 Introduction

Current Exam Facts Program Path and How to Use This Guide

2 Chapter 1: Accounting Foundations

1.1 Accounting Principles 1.2 Reading Financial Statements 1.3 Accounting Decisions in Models

3 Chapter 2: Time Value and Capital Budgeting

2.1 Time Value of Money 2.2 NPV, IRR, and Decision Rules 2.3 Capital Budgeting Cash Flows

4 Chapter 3: Cost of Capital

3.1 Capital Structure 3.2 CAPM, Beta, and Cost of Equity 3.3 WACC

5 Chapter 4: Profitability and Returns

4.1 Profitability and Margins 4.2 Returns and DuPont Analysis 4.3 Per-Share Metrics and Growth

6 Chapter 5: Liquidity, Leverage, and Cash Flow

5.1 Liquidity and Working Capital Metrics 5.2 Leverage, Coverage, and Credit 5.3 Cash Flow Statement Analysis

7 Chapter 6: Excel Fundamentals

6.1 Shortcuts, Setup, and Navigation 6.2 Core Formulas and Error Handling 6.3 Named Ranges and Workbook Hygiene

8 Chapter 7: Excel Lookups and Financial Functions

7.1 Lookup Functions 7.2 Conditional Aggregations 7.3 Financial Functions

9 Chapter 8: Excel What-If Analysis and Auditing

8.1 Goal Seek and Data Tables 8.2 Formula Auditing and Protection

10 Chapter 9: Financial Modeling Guidelines

9.1 Model Structure and Layout 9.2 Color Conventions and Formatting 9.3 Integrity Checks and Documentation

11 Chapter 10: Three-Statement Modeling

10.1 Articulating the Three Statements 10.2 Building the Income Statement 10.3 Building the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement

12 Chapter 11: Circularity and Model Audit

11.1 Circular References and Iteration 11.2 Auditing and Balancing a 3-Statement Model

13 Chapter 12: Operational Modeling

12.1 Revenue and Operating Drivers 12.2 Working Capital Modeling 12.3 Capex and Depreciation

14 Chapter 13: Debt Schedules, Scenarios, and Sensitivity

13.1 Debt and Interest Schedules 13.2 Scenario Analysis 13.3 Sensitivity Analysis

15 Chapter 14: Valuation Foundations

14.1 Valuation Methods and Enterprise Value 14.2 Unlevered Free Cash Flow

16 Chapter 15: DCF Valuation

15.1 DCF Structure, WACC, and Mid-Year Convention 15.2 Terminal Value and the Equity Bridge

17 Chapter 16: Comparable Valuation

16.1 Trading Comps and Multiples 16.2 Precedent Transactions and the Football Field

18 Chapter 17: Budgeting and Forecasting

17.1 Budget Types 17.2 Forecasting Techniques 17.3 Rolling Forecasts and Variance Analysis

19 Chapter 18: Presentation and Visuals

18.1 Chart Types and Selection 18.2 Dashboards and Data Visualization 18.3 PowerPoint and Pitchbooks 18.4 Presenting Model Outputs

20 Chapter 19: Professional Ethics and Qualitative Analysis

19.1 Professional Ethics 19.2 Qualitative Business Analysis

18.4 Presenting Model Outputs

Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI

A management-ready DCF exhibit is drivers, WACC build, TV share, equity-bridge waterfall, football field, and WACC-by-g sensitivity — not a raw 200-row sheet dump.

Alder Gordon year-end DCF: EV $2,071 million − debt $800 − preferred $50 − NCI $30 + cash $90 + investments $20 = equity $1,301 million, or $26.02 per 50.0 million diluted shares versus a $24.00 market.

Terminal value is 76.2% of Alder's EV, a common 60–80% modeling outcome; a 50-basis-point WACC increase to 9.5% drops implied value to about $23 per share.

Football-field bars must use the same net debt, preferred, NCI, and diluted share count; do not mix enterprise-value bars and equity-value bars on one axis.

Integrity: every exhibit number traces to a model cell; a slide that says 12% volume growth when Apex's model says 7.6% with a $1.00 price increase fails the case.

Last updated: August 2026

The Case Study Wants an Exhibit, Not a Sheet Dump

CFI's final is 50 randomized multiple-choice items including Excel modeling case studies , 3 hours , passing 70% . Help Center study tips: pace typical items under 3 minutes ; budget about 45 minutes per case study (60 max). A case that produces a DCF is not asking you to screenshot DCF!A1:Z200 . It is asking for a management-ready exhibit : the drivers, the WACC, the value, the football field, and the sensitivity — with every number matching the model .

Presentation & Visuals is about 5% of planned exam weight. In practice the domain also grades every case: a perfect unlevered-free-cash-flow schedule with a slide that shows $28.00 when the model shows $26.02 is a presentation fail and, if a later item uses the slide figure, a valuation fail too.

What to Show from a DCF

Alder Coatings, Chapter 15, year-end Gordon case (teaching figures, not a published CFI table).

1. Key drivers — one table, one slide

  • Driver Assumption Why it is on the exhibit
  • Revenue growth 8% → 4% over five years Explicit period must fade toward g
  • EBIT margin 15.5% → 16.3% Margin must be stable enough for TV
  • Tax rate 25% NOPAT = EBIT × (1 − t)
  • NWC 12% of revenue ΔNWC is not optional in UFCF
  • Capex vs D&A 55 vs 52 in Year 5 Near steady-state
  • WACC 9.0% Discount rate
  • Perpetual g 2.5% Must be < WACC and at or below long-run GDP/inflation
  • Exit multiple (cross-check) 8.0x Year-5 EBITDA Implied g 1.75%

UFCF path: 102, 117, 128, 143, 154 ($ millions). Present value of explicit UFCF $492.3 million . Gordon TV at Year 5 $2,428.46 million , present value of TV $1,578.3 million . Enterprise value = $2,070.6 million , shown as $2,071 million on the exhibit.

2. WACC build — show the arithmetic

Market equity $1,200 million , market debt $800 million , V = $2,000 million . E/V = 60% , D/V = 40% . Risk-free rate 4.0% , levered beta 1.60 , equity risk premium 5.0% , so cost of equity Re = 4.0 + 1.60 × 5.0 = 12.0% . Cost of debt Rd 6.0% , tax rate T 25% .

WACC = (E/V) × Re + (D/V) × Rd × (1 − T) = 0.60 × 12.0% + 0.40 × 6.0% × (1 − 0.25) = 7.20% + 1.80% = 9.00%.

Preferred of $50 million is not inside this 9% (small versus V) and is subtracted in the equity bridge . If a stem makes preferred large, add (P/V) × Rp with no tax shield. Do not hide the stack behind a single 9% typed on the slide.

3. Terminal-value share of value

TV share = 1,578.3 / 2,070.6 = 76.2% . CFI treats 60–80% as a common modeling outcome , not an official constant and not a target. On the exhibit, print 76.2% and one sentence: most of EV is terminal value, so a 50-basis-point WACC move is a large dollar move. If TV were 95%, the exhibit should flag that the explicit period is not doing work.

4. Equity-bridge waterfall

EV 2,071 − debt 800 − preferred 50 − NCI 30 + surplus cash 90 + non-core investments 20 = equity 1,301 . Diluted shares 50.0 million . $26.02 per share versus market $24.00 . That is the section 18.1 waterfall with a management title: Gordon year-end DCF implies $26.02 versus $24.00 market.

Check: 2,071 − 800 − 50 − 30 + 90 + 20 = 1,301 . If a slide shows equity $1,351 million , someone dropped preferred . If it shows $26.20 , someone used about 49.7 million shares instead of 50.0 million.

5. Football field

  • Method EV ($ m) Equity ($ m) Per share
  • DCF Gordon, year-end 2,071 1,301 $26.02
  • DCF Gordon, mid-year 2,162 1,392 $27.84
  • DCF 8.0x exit, year-end 1,896 1,126 $22.52
  • Current market — 1,200 $24.00

CFI's dashboard course formats a football field with data labels. Chapter 16's Northline field is the same object: DCF, trading comps, precedents, and current EV as a reference line , not a fourth method. Do not average the bars into a fake precision price. Do not drop a 21x outlier into the mean.

All bars on one field must be the same claimant . Alder’s table is per diluted share . Mixing enterprise value in $ millions on the same axis as $26.02 is a dual-axis cousin of section 18.1: the scales are not comparable. Convert every method through the same debt, preferred, NCI, cash, investments, and 50.0 million shares before you plot.

Loading diagram... Management-ready DCF pack: six exhibits, one model

Alder value per share at g = 2.5% as WACC moves 50 bp ($)

Sensitivity Table

A two-way data table (Chapter 13) on WACC × g , output value per share (or EV), belongs next to the football field. Teaching grid at g = 2.5% , fully re-discounting explicit UFCF and Gordon TV (not holding explicit PV constant):

  • WACC Implied value per share Versus $24.00 market
  • 8.5% ~$29.58 Above; cheaper capital lifts TV hard
  • 9.0% (base) $26.02 Exhibit headline
  • 9.5% ~$22.96 Now below the market

A 50-basis-point WACC increase drops about $3 per share because TV is 76% of EV. That sentence is why the table exists. Holding the $492.3 million explicit PV fixed when WACC changes is an approximation trap — the discount factors on 102, 117, 128, 143, and 154 change too.

At base WACC 9.0%, g also moves TV. g = 2.0% cuts Gordon TV_5 from $2,428 million toward $2,244 million . g = 3.0% lifts it toward $2,644 million . Print two or three cells you actually calculated. Do not screenshot a blank data-table template. Do not set g = 9% when WACC is 9%; the Gordon denominator is zero.

Management-Ready Versus Raw Dump

  • Raw sheet dump Management exhibit
  • 200 rows of UFCF plumbing 8-row driver table
  • Blue-font on every input WACC stack in four lines
  • Circular-interest iteration flags TV share and the 60–80% diagnostic
  • Hidden columns, #REF! Football field with four bars
  • Print area = entire workbook One dashboard plus 6–8 slides
  • Chart junk, 3-D, unmarked dual axis Direct labels, $ millions, year labels

The case is closer to CFI Dashboard 2 plus a six-slide distributed pitchbook than to File → Print. Budget the 45 minutes so that the last ten minutes are exhibit hygiene , not extra decimal places on Year 3 ΔNWC.

Integrity: The Slide Must Match the Model

This is the Presentation domain's mechanic (Professional Ethics is Chapter 19; the arithmetic lives here):

Traceable: every exhibit number has a cell. $26.02 = 1,301 / 50.

Same vintage: if you change volume to 2,200,000, the dashboard and the slides refresh . No paste-as-values without a timestamped freeze process (section 18.2).

Same unit and share count on every page.

No silent switches of mid-year versus year-end. If the model is year-end $26.02, the title must not say mid-year $27.84.

No AI or copy-paste drift. Revenue grew 12% on volume is a lie if Apex grew 7.6% with a price increase.

Football-field bars use the same net-debt, preferred, NCI, and diluted-share convention as the DCF bridge.

Alder check you can recite in a case: 2,071 − 800 − 50 − 30 + 90 + 20 = 1,301 . Dropping preferred and NCI overstates equity by $80 million and the price by $1.60 per share. Mixing EV $2,071 million as if it were a per-share number is a different fail: 2,071 / 50 = $41.42 , which skips the entire bridge.

Exam traps for section 18.4

Submitting the raw DCF sheet as the answer exhibit.

A football field with one bar (only the DCF you like).

Omitting TV share , then being surprised that 50 bp of WACC moves about $3 per share.

Dual-axis of EV and WACC, or EV bars mixed with per-share bars.

A pie of sources of value with 12 slices.

Title Valuation instead of Gordon year-end DCF implies $26.02 versus $24.00 market.

An elective LBO debt waterfall on a going-concern core case.

Rounding $26.02 to $26 on one slide and $26.02 on the next without a note.

The exhibit you can defend is the one a CFO can read in three minutes : drivers, 9.0% WACC, 76.2% TV, $26.02, a field that includes $22.52 and $27.84, and a sensitivity that shows why WACC is not a rounding issue. If those figures do not match the model, start over on the exhibit — not on a new DCF.