The International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC) announced that Marcus Morton, a managing director of valuation services at Duff & Phelps/Kroll’s London offices, has joined its Financial Instruments Board. The board’s mandate is to draft and consult on the International Valuation Standards (IVS) for financial instruments. The three other new board members are: Larry Levine, a managing director at Lincoln International LLC, based in Chicago; Manish Saxena, a partner in valuation advisory services at Grant Thornton, based in Bangalore; and Stephanie Sparvero, the global head of Bloomberg’s Evaluated Pricing Service (BVAL), based in New York City. These individuals began their three-year term last week.

Those concerned about standards for valuing complex financial instruments will also enjoy this thought leadership paper released by ICAS last month, written by Marie Gardner, head of research. Her “Valuation of Financial Instruments From the Perspective of Valuation Specialists” documents why fair value measurements (FVM) often become problematic for business valuation experts, including:

• Specialists often encounter clients who do not understand the complexity of the financial instruments they hold or of the valuation task; and
• Increased regulatory oversight can lead to an excessive emphasis on documentation and development of an audit trail, sometimes to the detriment of a high-quality FVM.