MANDA INSTITUTE

Every dataset the platform reads, with its source and its date.

The valuation engine, the benchmark pages and the peer sets all read from the same small set of datasets. This page names each one: what it is, who publishes it, how old the figures are and where on the site to use it. Every number on this page is read live from the same records those pages read, and each carries the date it speaks for.

The datasets, one by one
Each dataset is shown with one live figure, its publisher, the date it speaks for and the basis it rests on; the figure is read when you open the page.
The published anchor: the Argos Mid-Market Index
One published figure sits under every multiple on the platform. Argos Wityu and Epsilon Research publish a median EV to EBITDA multiple for private company sales in the eurozone each quarter, about two months after the quarter ends. The release also gives the multiples paid by strategic buyers and by investment funds, and we carry those as the bottom and top of the anchor's band.
The index only covers businesses inside the eurozone that are not listed on a stock exchange, worth between 15 million and 500 million euros, where the buyer took control rather than a minority stake. Each figure is a rolling median over six months. Three industries are left out of the index entirely: financial services, real estate, and high technology. Argos does not collect them, so any figure we show for those industries is ours alone and is not supported by this source.
The date on the figure is the end of the quarter the release covers, not the day we read it. Software never ingests a new quarter: a person reads the release and records it, the next start of the platform supersedes the anchor row from that record, and a weekly check alerts staff when a newer quarter is out.
Our own sector estimates
Argos publishes one figure covering all industries together. It does not publish a separate figure for any single industry, so every per industry number on this platform is our own estimate worked out from that one figure, not something Argos published. Each estimate is a separate observation with its derivation written in, dated to the anchor release it came from, and labelled a MANDA estimate wherever it is shown. When the anchor moves, the estimates are rescaled and the old rows superseded, never edited.
Listed company multiples and country risk, from NYU Stern
Aswath Damodaran at NYU Stern publishes industry multiples for listed European companies, and for each country a country risk premium with the total equity risk premium it produces, once a year in January. The listed multiples are held as published and shown beside a private business only after a flat reduction, because listed shares trade every day and private shares do not. The reduced figure is recorded as our own estimate, not the publisher's.
The total equity risk premium for a company's country enters the discount rate in the discounted cash flow method. It is never used to adjust a multiple: no published source converts a country premium into EBITDA turns, so the platform discloses the difference between the two methods instead of forcing them to agree.
Company registers
The platform reads public company registers through one connector per country. A register counts as covered only when we hold rows fetched from it, and as live only when we also hold the annual accounts filed with it. Where a connector has no access yet, the line below says so and no figure is shown for it.
The Companies House data we read gives identity but not turnover, so the United Kingdom rows carry names, numbers, activity codes, status and incorporation dates and nothing filed; the Netherlands rows are the same. Norway's register publishes the filed accounts too, and those figures enter the provenance graph with the balance date of each filing. Filed figures are self reported to the register; we have not checked them. Rows are fetched when staff run an ingest, so each figure is dated to the day its newest row was fetched.
Benchmarks computed from the register rows
After each register ingest, and whenever staff ask, a computation writes a benchmark per sector from the rows we hold. For Norway, where filed accounts are held, each figure is a median of a filed metric across the sector's companies; nothing is written below the minimum sample, and a sector that no longer meets it loses its rows on the next run. For the United Kingdom, where the register gives identity only, the figures describe the sector's companies: how many, how old and how they file; below the minimum sample the row is written without a value and counted as withheld. A Norwegian figure is dated to the balance date of the latest accounts behind it; a United Kingdom figure to the day it was computed.
Ownership from GLEIF
The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation publishes the legal entities that hold an LEI and the parent relationships recorded against them. We hold two kinds of entity: those matched one by one to the company register rows we hold, and the direct subsidiaries GLEIF returns for a curated list of large European parents, harvested each week. A relationship is stored only when GLEIF returned it, and only a recorded parent names an owner. An entity that declared no parent is shown as unknown, because most small companies are owned by people, who have no LEI; an absence in GLEIF says nothing about who owns a company.
Transaction records
Connectors read the European Commission's merger case register, the UK Competition and Markets Authority's merger inquiries and completed acquisition filings on SEC EDGAR each week, and record the parties, dates and sector of each case. The two merger control registers publish decisions, not prices, so a record from them never carries a multiple. Every record waits for a person to review it; only a reviewer can approve one for use in a valuation. The count of verified transactions held is shown beside the records, and the reports say plainly when it is none.
Exchange rates from the European Central Bank
A filed figure in another currency is converted to euro only at a European Central Bank reference rate we hold, dated to the day the bank published it and fetched each weekday afternoon. A currency without a published rate is not converted: the figure stays as filed, and anything converted at a seed rate is marked as such.
How to read a figure on this platform
A figure from a third party is held as the publisher released it. We record who published it, when, and under what licence, and we link to the release where the publisher allows. We do not audit the publisher's method, and a published figure is never described as verified.
A per sector multiple, a reduced listed company multiple and any figure we scaled from a published one is recorded as a MANDA estimate. The derivation is written into the row, so a reader can see the arithmetic and the source it started from. We do not dress an estimate as a publication.
A country is covered when we hold register rows for it and live when we also hold filed accounts. Those statuses are computed from row counts each time the page is read, so a connector that exists but has ingested nothing reports exactly that. The markets the platform serves are a different matter from the registers it reads; we do not describe one as the other, and this page only describes the second.
We hold no figure for a company we have never fetched, a filing a register does not publish, an ownership a company never recorded with GLEIF, or a sale price a merger control register does not disclose. In each case the page shows the gap in words and no figure is put in its place.
The instant benchmark gives you an indicative value range in under 60 seconds, measured against completed sales of medium sized European businesses. The full valuation takes about 5 minutes, uses your own financials and shows up to four methods. Both are free. Both are indicative estimates, not a formal appraisal.
The one success fee we intend to charge applies only when a deal closes. Provisional. No engagement letter has been drafted yet, so this is how we intend to charge rather than terms you can hold us to.

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