Last year, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued for public comment a staff consultation paper on potential standard-setting activities related to the auditor using the work of specialists, including valuation professionals. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is conducting a survey on the role of specialists in developing and evaluating the fair value estimates used in audited financial statements. This research may help in the PCAOB’s standard setting in this regard. Read more >>

Join your peers in responding to BVR’s Firm Economics Study, to see how growth and change is accelerating in the business valuation profession. Read more >>

There was record attendance at the ASA/USC 11th Annual Fair Value Conference in Los Angeles. BVWire was there and here are a few takeaways from some of the sessions, all of which were excellent. Read more >>

BVWire provides a few key takeaways from the recent annual business valuation conference of the New York State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA) in New York City. Read more >>

The ASA, AICPA, and RICS have issued two exposure drafts for public comment that relate to the ongoing initiative to improve the quality of financial reporting valuations for U.S. publicly traded companies. Comments are due June 24. Read more >>

Compensation forfeiture is an option that damages plaintiffs can seek that is not difficult or expensive to prove--plus it can be “stacked” onto other remedies. Read more >>

A number of M&A records were broken in 2015, including net M&A announcements (12,012), $100 million-plus deals (1,197), cash payments (78%), average P/E offered (29.6), and more, according to the 2016 Mergerstat Review. Read more >>

Although ESOP valuation experts have been exempted from the DOL’s final fiduciary rules, it’s still not safe to go back into the water, experts say. Read more >>

John Finnerty (Alix Partners) has developed a new version of his average-strike put option DLOM model that can be generalized to accommodate a restriction period of any particular fixed length. He presented the new model during a BVR webinar and asked the audience for comments and suggestions. He would also like some real data for testing purposes. Read more >>

A Florida appeals court examines the issue of whether the increased value of stock from a company for which the owning spouse works can be a marital asset and subject to distribution. Read more >>

A survey is open for respondents to indicate which industries they would like to see analyzed for economic causal factors and their elasticities in order to better determine passive appreciation in business assets in a divorce context. The resulting analyses will be published. Read more >>

A prior post that highlighted the article “NY’s Unfair Application of Shareholder-Level Marketability Discounts,” written by Gil Matthews and Michelle Patterson (both with Sutter Securities) has sparked calls for the BV profession to speak with “one clear voice” on this issue. Read more >>

Forty percent of respondents to a recent BVWire poll cite practice management as their biggest concern for 2016. This includes issues such as competition, fee pressures, hiring, succession planning, and the like. Read more >>

A "new note" in the hotly debated NY DLOM issue was sounded in an article in the January issue of Business Valuation Update. In the article, “NY’s Unfair Application of Shareholder-Level Marketability Discounts,” Gil Matthews and Michelle Patterson (both with Sutter Securities) write that New York “stands alone in that it favors (and some lower courts believe requires) the imposition of a marketability discount on dissenting shareholders in fair value determinations. There is broad consensus that DLOMs should seldom, if ever, be permitted in appraisal or oppression cases.” Read more >>

Analysis of trademark valuation data for restaurant brands reveals that value multiples depend on the price positioning of a particular brand. Full service, sit-down restaurants generate a higher brand value premium than fast food restaurants. Read more >>

Intangible assets average 30% of the purchase consideration (PC) and goodwill averages 38% of the PC, according to the Houlihan Lokey 2014 Purchase Price Allocation Study. A different analysis of over 6,000 purchase price allocations finds that the ratio of intangible assets to total assets is 72%. This is according to the second edition of Benchmarking Identifiable Intangibles and Their Useful Lives in Business Combinations. Read more >>

The International Association of Consultants, Valuators and Analysts (IACVA) and the Middle East Charter (together with Business Valuation Resources and the China Appraisal Society) held a busy conference at the Al Murooj Rotana hotel in beautiful Dubai on December 13 and 14, 2015. Valuation experts from around the globe discussed developments from their perspectives. Read more >>

A new study suggests that a business valuation firm’s “visible expertise” is the most important single factor in generating referrals. Visible expertise is developed by conducting activities that promote thought leadership, such as speaking and writing frequently on topics of interest to your target audience. Read more >>