Ashok B. Abbott, Ph.D.

Ashok B. Abbott is an Associate Professor of Finance at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. He has also taught at the Graduate school of Credit and Financial Management held at Dartmouth and Stanford University.

Professor Abbott received his MBA in Finance at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1984, which was followed by a Ph.D. in finance also at VPI&SU, in 1987. His Ph.D. dissertation title was "The Valuation Effects of Tax Legislation in Corporate Sell-Offs." Professor Abbott has over twenty years of experience in the evaluation of businesses as a senior bank lender and as a business appraiser.  He is a consultant to valuation firms in the areas of DLOL and DLOM (S&P, Duff and Phelps, Willamette). The Small Business Administration recognized Professor Abbott as the Small Business Advocate-Journalist for the year 2002.

Professor Abbott has received frequent recognition and awards for his teaching including Best Teacher Award College of Business 1993, Best Teacher Award Division of Economics and Finance 1995, and Lifetime Investment Award given by the Executive MBA graduating class of 1999. He has published extensively in scholarly research journals and made presentations at national and international conferences, with some recent ones pertaining to the BV discipline:

• “Untangling the Web of Discounts: Marketability, Liquidity, and Control Issues in Valuation”, Valuation Strategies, August 2004
  
  
• “Strategic Flexibility and Firm Performance: The Case of US Based Transnational corporations”, Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 2003 Vol4, Nos. 1&2, pp1-8 (lead article), with Kunal Banerji
  
  
• “Discount for lack of marketability: evidence from NASDAQ delistings”,
  Business Valuation Review, December 2003
  
  
• “New Flexible Paradigms in Equity Valuation: Knowledge Based Enterprises”,
  Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management-   2001 Vol 2. No.1
  
  
• "Role of liquidity in Asset Pricing", proceedings of International Conference on Business and Finance, December 2004, Hyderabad, India
  
  
• “Untangling the Web of Discounts: Marketability, Liquidity, and Control Issues in Valuation”, proceedings of Institute of Business Appraisers Meeting, Las Vegas, June 2004
  
  
• "Re-examining the Risk and Return effects of Joint Ventures",
   proceedings of Hawaii International Conference on Business” Honolulu, June 2004, with Tuncer Gocman

Jay Fishman, FASA, CBA

Jay E. Fishman, FASA, CBA, is a Managing Director of Financial Research Associates and has been actively engaged in the appraisal profession since 1974.  He specializes in the valuations of business enterprises and their intangible assets including: patents, trademarks, customer lists, goodwill, and going concern.  Mr. Fishman has co-authored several books including Guide to Business Valuations (with Shannon Pratt), and written numerous articles on business valuations as well as qualifying as an expert witness and providing testimony in twelve states.  He has taught courses on business valuation to numerous groups throughout the world, including groups in Russia and The Peoples’ Republic of China.  He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Temple University as well as an M.B.A. from LaSalle University.  Mr. Fishman is a Fellow of the American Society of Appraisers, a former Chairman of the Business Valuation Committee of the American Society of Appraisers, Accredited Senior Member of the Institute of Business Appraisers, Inc. and formerly a Trustee of the Appraisal Foundation.

Jay has taught courses on business valuation to government and professional organizations, including the Internal Revenue Service, the National Judicial College, the American Society of Appraisers, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and on behalf of the World Bank in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Jay has testified on numerous occasions and has been the court-appointed expert in a number of state and federal courts.  He has also served as an impartial arbitrator in a number of proceedings.

A prolific writer, Jay Fishman co-authored the highly acclaimed textbooks Guide to BusinessValuations and Guide to Canadian Business Valuations and developed the course, “Data Research and the Market Approach To Valuation” for the Business Valuation Certificate of Educational Achievement program co-sponsored by the Illinois CPA Foundation and the AICPA. His published articles have appeared in Valuation, Fair share, Venture Capital Timesaver, and Closely Held Business Ideas.

William Morrison, CPA/ABV

William J. Morrison, CPA/ABV, is the president of Morrison & Company, a forensic accounting firm located in Paramus, New Jersey.  He is a CPA licensed in New Jersey and Florida with over 30 years experience as an investigator, forensic accountant, and business valuator.  He is accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) by the American Institute Certified Public Accountants.  Mr. Morrison has been appointed as an expert for the federal and state courts in New Jersey in over one thousand matters as a forensic accountant, valuation expert, and mediator.  He has provided expert witness services in complex civil and criminal matters involving stockholder oppression, high net worth divorces, and economic damage claims, among others.

Mr. Morrison and Morrison & Company specialize in the investigation and valuation of closely held businesses.  In this regard, he has investigated hundreds of businesses to determine unreported cash income as an expert for the New Jersey Chancery Courts.  He has served as an expert for the Supreme Court of New Jersey to investigate Attorney Trust Account misappropriation.  He has been appointed as the monitor and accountant to the monitor in federal and state court.  He was appointed by the Honorable Joseph Rodriguez as the Court’s monitor in The United States v. Walsh.  He has conducted investigations on behalf of the State of New Jersey and New Hampshire and four counties in New Jersey.  He has served as an economic damage expert for The Record and the Star Ledger.

Mr. Morrison has investigated fraud and misappropriation at hospitals and utilities.  Entities he has investigated include Orange and Rockland Electric and the University of Medicine and Dentistry.

Mr. Morrison served on Governor Florio’s Health Care Fraud Task Force and as Treasurer for Governor Whitman’s two campaigns for Governor.  He currently serves as the financial advisor to the audit committee of Pascack Community Bank.

Mr. Morrison has lectured frequently to organizations such as the New Jersey Institute of Continuing Legal Education and the New Jersey State Society of Certified Public Accountants on topics such as the maintenance of attorney trust accounts and forensic accounting.  He has published numerous articles on business valuation and forensic accounting in publications such as Valuing Professional Practices and Licenses published by Aspen.  He is the coauthor of Standards of Value, Theory and Application being published by Wiley in October 2006.

Prior to founding Morrison & Company, he served as a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as an internal auditor, and as a Certified Public Accountant.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston College and an MBA in accounting from Farleigh Dickinson University.  He is a former adjunct professor at Seton Hall University where he taught a course in internal auditing.

Steve Wagner, Esq.

Stephen James Wagner is a Certified Family Law Specialist and partner in the Sacramento law firm of Dick & Wagner, specializing in complex family law matters, including issues relating to fiduciary duties, characterization, tracings, business valuations, and support.

Mr. Wagner, who entered private practice in 1975, is a Diplomate of the American College of Family Trial Attorneys and permanent faculty member of the ABA's Annual Family Law Trial Advocacy Institute (an eight-day course). He is a member of the Hall of Fame of the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists (ACFLS-2003). In 2006 he was selected the Family Law Person of the Year by the Southern California Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers'. He has been a speaker for more than 150 CLE programs since 1980.

Mr. Wagner is a coauthor, along with Dawn Gray, of the new LexisNexisIMatthew Bender publication, Complex Issues in California Family Law. This is a 12-volume series which is written to provide the family law bar and bench with the most in-depth analysis available of the family law issues being addressed.

He is also a consultant to the LexisNexisIMatthew Bender: (1) Kirkland, Lurvey, Richmond & Wagner, California Family Law Practice and Procedure, 2nd ed.; (2) California Family Law Monthly; and (3) the California Family Law Litigation Guide-Strategy, Planning and Preparation for Depositions, Hearings and Trial.

Mr. Wagner is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Mr. Wagner has been selected for each edition of Best Lawyers in America since 1987.

The Complex Issues series addresses numerous Family Law topics including:

• Interspousal fiduciary duties
• Tracings Transmutations
• Equitable apportionment (MoorelMarsden and PereiraNan Camp)
• The legal principals involving a business valuation
• The mechanics of a business valuation
• Support and fees, and
• The use of forensic accountants, business appraisers and real estate appraisers in Family Law

CPE Credit Information

Earn 2 Interactive CPE Credits (Consulting Services)
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