Encyclopedia Sales, Man. Options

[mbz1]

I'd like to ask, if Wikipedia could be sold, and if so, who'd get the money.

[Kelly Martin]

Charities are valuated, when they are valuated at all, at book value. Since charities cannot be privately owned, there's no such thing as a P/E ratio or dividend yield or any of the other metrics that are used to value businesses. Book value tends to yield a fairly conservative estimate of the value of an enterprise (since it usually reflects what the enterprise would be worth if immediately liquidated, with no regards to future earning potential), but as the entire future earnings of a charity (other than investment income, which would be entirely derived from its current and fixed assets anyway) are in its donor goodwill, and donor goodwill is generally not very transferable, book value is probably the fairest valuation of a charity.

You should be able to find an approximate book value for the WMF in its annual audit report, and it might also be in their Form 990 (although I don't remember anymore what's in a 990, or which of the various reporting requirements apply to the WMF).