Is it time to break out the bubbly for a growing profession?   When BVR conducted the business valuation profession's first Business Valuation Firm Economics and Best Practices Survey in November 2006, we estimated that the “hardcore” BV profession—those providing business appraisals intended to comply with one or more professional association standards—was nearing the $1 billion benchmark in total revenues.  Our review of the just-collected data for the 2008-2009 update of this survey, suggests that we’ve flown by that target.  

Total business valuation revenues earned by firms who contributed financial data to this new survey (almost three times as many firms as in 2006) were more than $570 million.   “While hardly scientific, based on participation rates, growth rates, and market demographics, we venture to estimate that the business valuation profession is now already close to a $1.2 billion industry,” says David Foster, BVR CEO, who is editing this year’s edition.  “The analysis behind this forecast is fraught with estimates, but it seems worthwhile in any case because no one has tried to estimate the size of the business valuation profession previously.”  The 2008-2009 edition of Business Valuation Firm Economics and Best Practices Survey will be available September 1.   Drop an e-mail to davidf@bvresources.com if you’d like to be on the list to order a copy at the pre-publication discount of $199 (instead of the $249 list price).