Listed markets and the valuations beneath them

A listed share price is set in public, but much of what it reflects is measured in private. Property portfolios are appraised, intangible assets are assessed, business units are tested — and the results flow into the disclosures on which exchanges, analysts and investors rely. The quality of listed-market information is, to a significant degree, the quality of the valuations beneath it.

Property on the listed balance sheet

Listed real estate is the clearest case. For European listed property companies, EPRA’s Best Practices Recommendations (September 2024) set out the disclosure conventions the sector reports against. They recommend that companies use an external valuer at least annually, and state that valuations should be in accordance with the International Valuation Standards.

These are recommendations rather than binding rules — but that is precisely what makes them informative. They record what a listed sector, its investors and its analysts have converged on as good practice: regular, external, standards-based valuation as the foundation of comparable reporting.

Intangibles step into disclosure

For most listed companies, the harder measurement problem is not buildings but the assets with no physical form: brands, technology, data, relationships. Disclosure practice here is younger, and one of the most developed examples is Singapore’s Intangibles Disclosure Framework, launched in September 2023 by IPOS and ACRA as an initiative of the Singapore IP Strategy 2030.

The framework draws its definition of intangibles from IVS 210, and where companies choose to disclose monetary valuations of their intangibles, those valuations should be conducted in accordance with IVS — with an explanation required where they are not. For issuers, that comply-or-explain structure is a useful template: it anchors voluntary disclosure to a recognised standard without forcing premature precision.

What markets actually price

Valuation in listed markets is not only a reporting exercise; it is the lens through which strategy becomes a number. An IVSC paper drawn from a keynote by DBS Group CFO Chng Sok Hui at the IVAS–IVSC Business Valuation Conference in Singapore examines how digitalisation, culture and capital management translate into outcomes that markets can price — questions with relevance well beyond banking, for valuation, reporting and investment alike.

The lesson for listed companies is general: the things management believes create value only register with investors when they can be measured, explained and tracked over time.

A common reference point

What links these threads is the value of a shared reference. The International Valuation Standards pair General Standards — covering scope of work, bases of value, valuation approaches, data and inputs, models, and documentation and reporting — with Asset Standards for businesses, intangibles, real property, financial instruments and more. Used as a framework in more than 100 countries, they give issuers, exchanges and investors a common language for the numbers that sit beneath a listing.