The working group made up of representatives of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC), as well as the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), the Saudi Authority for Accredited Valuers (TAQEEM), and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators (CBV Institute), developed and released the new International Valuation Glossary—Business Valuation last month, which is intended to replace the glossary last published in 2001.

Many other organizations, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA), and The Appraisal Foundation, were consulted to guarantee concensus.

You may download the new International Valuation Glossary here (free registration required).

Not authoritative: The release of this final Glossary was somewhat delayed after the initial draft release in December 2020 by concerns that they could be seen as standards or that business valuers would be “quizzed” on them during contentious valuations. No group in the UK or elsewhere recognises them as standards, and the working group does not intend the new glossary to be authoritative.

BVWire—UK notes that many financial terms and standards of value defined in the draft version of the glossary that are not regularly used in business valuation reports have been removed in this final version.

RICS (and TAQEEM, the CBV Institute, and the ASA) will publish the new glossary as a practice aid/guidance to their members. The IVSC is supportive of the new glossary, but the International Valuation Standards (IVS) define only terms used within IVS.

The working group says it “encourages other organisations to use and reference the glossary in any way they see fit.”