Z. Christopher Mercer, ASA, CFA

Z. Christopher Mercer is founder and chief executive officer of Mercer Capital. Mercer Capital is a business valuation and investment banking firm serving a national and international clientele. In addition, Mercer Capital provides investment banking and corporate advisory services including sell-side and buy-side merger & acquisition representation, fairness opinions, solvency opinions, business interest and securities valuation, and board presentations, among others.

Mr. Mercer began his valuation career in the late 1970s. He has prepared, overseen, or contributed to hundreds, if not thousands, of valuations for purposes related to M&A, litigation, and tax, among others. He is a prolific author on valuation-related topics and one of the most sought after speakers on business valuation issues for national professional associations and other business and professional groups.

Mr. Mercer has broad industry experience providing corporate valuation and investment banking services to hundreds of companies in an array of industries. Specific industry experience includes, but is not limited to, auto dealerships, construction, general & specialty contracting, distribution companies, financial institutions, financial services, retail, manufacturing, restaurants, technology companies, telecommunications, trucking & transportation.

In addition to this publication, Mr. Mercer is the sole author of four books including Valuing Shareholder Cash Flows: Quantifying Marketability Discounts, Valuing Enterprise and Shareholder Cash Flows: The Integrated Theory of Business Valuation, Quantifying Marketability Discounts, and Valuing Financial Institutions. Mr. Mercer is also a contributing author to Valuation for Impairment Testing. He has also published scores of articles and given numerous speeches on topics related to business valuation and investment banking.

Learn more about Chris Mercer and Mercer Capital at: www.MercerCapital.com

Roger Grabowski, ASA

Roger J. Grabowski, ASA, is a Managing Director of Duff & Phelps, LLC. He was formerly a Managing Director of Standard & Poor’s Corporate Value Consulting practice and before that a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and one of its predecessor firms, Price Waterhouse (where he founded its U.S. Valuation Services practice and managed the real estate appraisal practice).

Mr. Grabowski has directed valuations of businesses, interests in businesses, intellectual property, intangible assets, real property and machinery and equipment. He has testified in court as an expert witness on the value of closely held businesses and business interests, matters of solvency, valuation and amortization of intangible assets and other valuation issues. He testified in the Northern Trust case, the first U.S. Tax Court decision that adopted the discounted cash flow method to value the stock of a closely-held business with the discount rate based on the Capital Asset Pricing Model. His testimony in U.S. District Court was referenced in the U.S. Supreme Court opinion decided in his client’s favor in the landmark Newark Morning Ledger case.

Roger co-authors the annual Duff & Phelps’ Risk Premium Report, published at www.ibbotson.com. He has authored numerous pieces. For example, he authored “Equity Risk Premium- What is the Current Evidence?” that appeared in the fall, 2005 issue of Business Valuation Review and the November, 2005 issue of Business Valuation Update and co-authored three chapters in the recently released The Handbook of Business Valuation and Intellectual Property Analysis (McGraw-Hill, 2004), including chapters on the equity risk premium and the valuation of pass-through entities. Roger teaches courses for the American Society of Appraisers including Cost of Capital, a course he co-developed.

Jim Hitchner, CPA/ABV, ASA

James R. Hitchner, CPA/ABV, ASA, is managing director of The Financial Valuation Group (FVG) in Atlanta, Georgia.  FVG is a national financial advisory services firm specializing in valuation and litigation services.  He is a founding member and president of the Financial Consulting Group, L.C. (FCG), a national association of professional services firms providing valuation, financial and litigation consulting. 

Mr. Hitchner has more than 29 years of professional experience, including 27 years in valuation services and two years in real estate development.  He spent over seven years with Phillips Hitchner Group and was also partner-in-charge of valuation services for the Southern Region of Coopers & Lybrand (currently PricewaterhouseCoopers), where he spent more than nine years.  He was also employed as a senior appraiser with American Appraisal Associates, in both the financial and industrial valuation groups.

He has been recognized as a qualified expert witness and has provided testimony on valuations in numerous state and federal courts.  In the valuation area he has coauthored 20 courses, taught over 50 courses, published over 50 articles, and has made over 100 conference presentations including the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA), and numerous state CPA societies.  He has also been a faculty member teaching valuation courses for judges for the National Judicial College and the Flaschner Judicial Institute. He has also been involved in hundreds of intangible asset valuations and was also an ad hoc advisor to the FASB on its deliberations concerning SFAS 141/142 and presented a session on valuing and lifing intangible assets. 

Mr. Hitchner iseditor/coauthor of the book Financial Valuation Applications and Models, second edition; coauthor of the book Financial Valuation Workbook, second edition; and co-author of the book Valuation for Financial Reporting: Intangible Assets, Goodwill, and Impairment Analysis—SFAS 141 and 142 all published by Wiley. Two of his books have been adopted by the AICPA for its six-day Business Valuation Essentials course and by NACVA for its three-day Advanced Business Valuation course. He is editor in chief of Financial Valuation and Litigation Expert, a bimonthly journal that presents views and tools from some of the leading experts in valuation, forensics/fraud and litigation services. He serves on the editorial board of Business Valuation Update and is a contributing editor to the AICPA’s CPA Expert.

He is an inductee in the AICPA Business Valuation Hall of Fame and current member of the AICPA task force on business valuation standards.  Mr. Hitchner is past chairman of the business valuation committee of the Georgia Society of CPAs, past member of the AICPA business valuation subcommittee, past member of the AICPA ABV exam committee, past chairman of the ABV exam review course committee. He has a bachelor of science degree in engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree in business administration degree from Rider University.  He holds the AICPA Accreditation in Business Valuation (ABV) specialty designation and also is an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) with the American Society of Appraisers.

CPE Credit Information

Earn 2 Interactive CPE Credits (Consulting Services)
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