At the beginning of their presentation at the recent IBA 2007 Symposium in Denver, Keith Pinkerton and Pete Butler asked how many attendees thought they could quantify company-specific risk of guideline publicly traded stock—and only a few hands went up.  But by the end of the four-hour session, after a “heated” but satisfying debate, when the presenters asked the same question a significant portion—more than half—of participants raised their hand.  “I also believe that, at a minimum, we reached general consensus (although not complete agreement) that starting at 0% is a non-starter,” reports Butler, ”and that using a negative company-specific risk is a big no-no.” 

Both presenters were exhausted after the session (“it was like we were on the witness stand for four hours”), but feel even better prepared for their upcoming session with Roger Grabowski at the October ASA BV conference in San Diego (see BVWire™ # 57-2).  As a reminder, you can download the series of three articles on the Pinkerton/Butler technique at BVResources.com.