Market Valuation and Risk Assessment (Z score) of Selected Iranian Private Banks: Merton-Black-Scholes Approach

The present paper provides option pricing by using Merton-Black-Scholes approach in order to calculate the market value of banks’ assets, assets volatility, and distance to default for a selected sample of Iranian private banks in the period of 2010-1013. Therefore, the approach is able to solve some problems of banks valuation. At first for the period of 4 years, market value of assets, assets volatility and the distance to default were calculated and compared. Then, weighted average of market value, volatility, and Z-score for the banks in the period were also computed and compared. The results showed that Mellat bank had the highest, and Sina bank had the lowest value during the period. The results of assets risk and distance to default (Z score) have been different for each year. Also, weighted average of market value and assets risk (volatility) of these banks showed a rising trend during these 4 years. Considering the increased average capital adequacy ratio during these 4 years for 8 banks, the average Z (distance to default) has been decreased. This means that during the period of 4 years, by increasing the rate of capital adequacy, banks have been closer to default. Probably, the negative effects of economic and non-economic factors exceed positive impact of capital adequacy rate.