During the recent ASA New York Fair Value Conference, Mike N. Moskowitz and Tushar Shah, both with EY, discussed global valuations with an emphasis on the cost of capital. One important point they made concerns geography—that is, even though a company may be headquartered in a certain country, do not assume to use that country as the basis for your cost of capital estimates. You need to look at where the company does its business—where it operates and where it generates revenue—which can be in very different locations than the headquarters. They also discussed the source of data they use, application of country risk premiums, inflation differences, impact of currency exchange rates (forward rates versus spot rate), riskiness of the prospective financial information, and sovereign bond/yield considerations. A full recap of the conference is in the September issue of Business Valuation Update.