BVWire attended the New York State Society of CPAs’ Business Valuation and Litigation Services Conference, and—as always—it was an excellent event. Here are a few highlights:

• Today, there are “unbelievable opportunities” for money laundering—valuers and other advisors need to consider themselves gatekeepers;
• A New York case is expected to trigger more LLC cash-out mergers, which means a big new opportunity for appraisers;
• Earnouts as a percentage of deal price are typically 10% or less but that figure can vary greatly (could even be up to 100%);
• Tax cases can go either to Tax Court or federal court—the Tax Court judges lean toward the IRS, but the federal court judges lean toward the taxpayer;
• The SEC has gotten very interested in SPAC-related enforcement, but not much has been written about valuations in this area;
• A large valuation practice uses the oLogit model to estimate a synthetic credit rating when valuing debt;
• A DCF analysis can be done to quantify a control premium—just compare the DCF using company-provided projections with one that reflects potential changes a hypothetical controlling owner could make; and
• Three-quarters of business owners will head for the exit over the next 10 years—business valuations will be needed to prepare for all these transitions.

There will be a detailed recap of the conference in the July 2022 issue of Business Valuation Update.

Extra: Is your state CPA society holding a BV conference this year? We’d love to know about it—send a note to info@bvresources.com.