Congratulations to the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) for gathering over 500 business appraisers, valuation analysts, financial and legal advisors to its Advanced BV conference last week.

In the Society’s weekly E-Letter (Oct. 21, 2009), ASA BV Committee Chair John Barton offers free materials to those who didn’t travel to Boston. “Dr. Damodaran and Dr. Christopher Tofallis (University of Hertfordshire) bravely joined a panel on Total Beta and went tiptoeing down the third rail of specific risk with Peter Butler, Larry Kasper, and moderator Roger Grabowski,” Barton adds. “Estimating specific risk is one of the more subjective areas of what we do. The panel discussion showed that sometimes the progression of best practice can be a painful process. Kudos. . . to Professors Tofallis and Damodaran for providing context and good counsel to the profession [while] we consider ways to make our numbers more objective.” Since virtually all business appraisers encounter specific-company risk in every valuation assignment, the ASA-BV Committee has posted the materials from this panel to its website (ASA password required). “I urge everyone to download them and start reading,” Barton says. “It is not light material, but it is nonetheless necessary.”