Paula Seidel at The Appraisal Foundation sent us the good news that they released the first monograph in their Best Practices for Valuations in Financial Reporting series last week. The Identification of Contributory Assets and Calculation of Economic Rents is available here. TAF’s monograph series offers voluntary guidance to appraisers, and, to this end, this first monograph also includes a Toolkit that provides illustrative examples.

Seidel recognized that both documents are the culmination of several years of research, deliberation and public exposure on the topic of Contributory Assets—and as such she wanted to specifically thank the members of the Working Group on Contributory Assets and their firms who donated their valuable time and resources to this project:

• Anthony Aaron, Chair, Ernst & Young, LLP – Los Angeles, CA
• Jim Dondero, Huron Consulting Group – Boston, MA
• Gregory Forsythe, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP – Pittsburgh, PA
• Paul Barnes, Duff & Phelps, LLC – Philadelphia, PA
• Mark Zyla, Vice Chair, Acuitas, Inc. – Atlanta, GA

“In 2006, The Appraisal Foundation offered to lend its infrastructure to the process of creating monographs that would be useful in narrowing the diversity in practice in valuations for financial reporting,” said Jay Fishman, Vice Chair of the Appraisal Practices Board and Co-Chair of the Steering Committee on Best Practices for Valuations in Financial Reporting.  “It is a credit to the members of the Working Group and everyone else associated with this project that our first monograph is a reality.”

The Appraisal Foundation currently has two additional documents being developed by volunteer Working Groups:

• valuing customer relationships, and
• control premiums.

For more information on the Valuations in Financial Reporting project or other activities of The Appraisal Foundation, please contact Paula.