Chapter 5 Enhancing the Role of Real Options in Financial Decision Making: Buying and Selling Real Options

Perhaps the most difficult objection raised by skeptics of the real options approach concerns the apparent lack of market transactions that would verify that real options have actual value. Although there are no organized exchanges with publicly disclosed prices, there are nevertheless several mechanisms for buying and selling real options. Observing these could offer important advantages in the quest for enhancing the role of real options in financial decision making:•demonstrate that real options can indeed add value•in some cases even gain a sense of the amount of value added by real options•offer expert appraisers methods for improved estimation of the value of a business when real options are part of the organizational capital

The most frequently used method for buying or selling real options occurs when a product that includes real options is sold to customers (often at a premium above the price of a comparable product that does not include real options). Real options that are part of the organizational capital of a business are part of the package in an acquisition (or minority equity position). In this chapter we examine several cases of such transactions.