Even this recession might not be enough to devalue a company

Experts can successfully argue that the process of business appraisal inherently includes a discount for the risk of economic turmoil.   At least that's what just happened in Mistretta v.Mistretta (Fla. App., Feb. 18, 2010), where the trial court valued the husband’s restaurant at $854,000, based on a valuation report prepared nearly a year earlier. The husband moved for reconsideration, claiming the recession caused the restaurant to lose value. The trial court agreed, finding that no one could have foreseen the severity of the economic crisis—but the wife successfully appealed. “Economic recessions, like other vagaries in the business cycle, are contingencies appraisers must take into account in valuing a business,” the appellate court held, despite a strong dissent which likened the recession to a global economic “tsunami.”

The wife’s expert, Gary Trugman, obviously agrees with the majority. “The truth is, we did consider the economic downturn, because we used dual valuation dates,” he tells the BVWire™.

The husband also lost on his expert’s claim that 50% of the restaurant’s value was personal goodwill. “As I said to the judge, ‘Your Honor, when was the last time you went to a restaurant if the food was lousy, the service was terrible, but the owner was a really nice guy?’ I think that got my point across, that there was very little personal goodwill,” Trugman says. “I used Pratt’s Stats data for restaurants to demonstrate what portion of the purchase price was protected by a covenant not to compete, and used that percentage to allocate some personal goodwill—but it was a relatively small figure.”