Professor Soon Nel, Professor of Management Accounting and Finance, and Deputy Director: Research of the School of Accountancy, presented his inaugural lecture on 10 May.

He was introduced by Prof Ingrid Woolard, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, who listed his principal research interests as equity valuations, investment appraisals, and mergers and acquisitions.

In his lecture entitled The quick, rough and dirty side of the market-based approach to valuations: caveat emptor vs. caveat venditor, Prof Nel highlighted the inherent dangers embedded in the use of multiples as a valuation approach when valuing a company or an equity stake held in a company. He specifically addressed pitfalls pertaining to peer group selection, conventional multiples, composite constructs and intra-modelling inconsistencies.  

Prof Nel has received awards for, inter alia, best paper, teaching excellence and Rector's Awards for outstanding achievement, and has compiled various research reports for The Economist Group. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the South African Journal of Accounting Research and is a visiting professor at the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB).

• Click here to read more about Prof Nel's inaugural lecture.

• Photo by Anton Jordaan: Prof Soon Nel with Professors Nico Koopman, Vice-Rector: Social Impact and Transformation, and Ingrid Woolard, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.