While in Las Vegas, BVWire stopped in at the ESOP Association’s Employee Owned Conference, billed as the largest ESOP conference in the world. In the reception area and the Exhibit Hall, we ran into several providers of ESOP valuation services, who told us they are not very confident that the Department of Labor will issue its much-awaited proposed valuation regs by year-end as expected (see our prior coverage). They are also worried that the regs will reflect the DOL’s tough stance on valuation issues and that stakeholders may not get a sufficient chance to comment on the proposal. We pointed out that there is supposed to be a two-to-three-month public comment period before the regs are finalized. One individual wondered whether there would be a public hearing. We don’t know whether there will be or not, but the valuation profession would certainly welcome that. Stay tuned!