About 600 attendees converged—both on-site and virtually—for the American Society of Appraisers’ International Conference in Las Vegas October 24-26. It was great seeing many people at a live event after all these many months so there was a lot of catching up to do! Here are just a few items of interest—just the tip of the iceberg—from the sessions and the many networking opportunities (full coverage will be in the December issue of Business Valuation Update):

• Johnnie White, the ASA’s CEO, has great things planned for the organization, including new headquarters, a new website, a systems overhaul, and a new PR campaign to raise awareness;
• Activity on the Vegas Strip has bounced back in strong form—which was confirmed by a session Ray Moran (FON Valuation Services) moderated covering M&A and valuation issues in the gaming industry;
• During the preconference sessions, Ray Rath debuted a new advanced course on the valuation of intangible assets, BV303—Valuation of Intangible Assets and Special Topics, which is a combination of two prior courses;
• BV recruiter John Borrowman (Borrowman Baker) told us some alarming news: From May 2021 to October 2021, 63 professionals have left the business valuation, forensics, and litigation services profession;
• Gary Trugman (Trugman Valuation) was at the BVR booth in the exhibit hall, where preorders were being taken for the new sixth edition of his book, Understanding Business Valuation (due out early 2022);
• Duff & Phelps would like some feedback on its development of a company-level beta module for its Cost of Capital Navigator;
• A sports team’s current win-loss record doesn’t always have an impact on value, according to Drew Dorweiler (IJW & Co.);
• BV pioneer and elder statesman Shannon Pratt appeared (on video) to trumpet the upcoming sixth edition of his book, Valuing a Business (due out March 2022);
• The traditional relief from royalty method for valuing patents has serious shortcomings, one being that it doesn’t capture the value of a defensive patent portfolio, says Brian Dies (Hoffman Alvary & Co. LLC);
• Closed-end fund data and expanded economic data are now available on the Tagnifi platform of guideline public-company data (it was a platinum sponsor of the conference); and
• In their session, Ron Seigneur (Seigneur Gustafson LLP) and Nicholas Parseghian (Marcum LLP) said the pandemic has had some very positive effects on the cannabis industry—and much of it will stick going forward (Seigneur is a co-author of the Cannabis Industry Accounting and Appraisal Guide).

Kudos to the ASA and its conference staff for an amazing event! Next year’s conference will be in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. See you there!