Look at the Numbers and Exercise Skepticism Often, business owners will inadvertently present a biased account of their company’s success. Is there a similarity between the bias of business owner’s and crime scene victims? In this article, the author answers this question. Imagine this: you are at the scene of a crime. Witnesses are canvassed, each with their own version of events. One witness is adamant th ...

You Need Better Clients A frequent question that newly minted and experienced valuation practitioners raise, is how one gets more clients. The question that should be asked is how one gets better clients. The author shares his thoughts on why the latter is the better question and source of focus. Surprise, the most frequent practice development questions I get primarily have this theme: How do I get more cl ...

Book Review This fall, the American Bar Association released Shannon Pratt’s The Lawyer’s Business Valuation Handbook 3rd Edition. This publication has been edited by Roger J. Grabowski, FASA and Alina Niculita, ASA, ARM-BV, CFA, MBA. It is a comprehensive guide for attorneys (and judges) to enable them to better understand the substance and basis of the valuation expert’s work. In this article, Michael G. ...

Marketing Tips for Professional Service Professionals Marc Kohler, an estate planning expert, may offer other professional services professionals a template to follow to secure additional engagement. The article describes how Marc Kohler has marketed his services. In the field of tax law and estate planning (where online engagement can be difficult, if not impossible to obtain), Mark J. Kohler (”Kohler”) ha ...

Valuation Discounts Considered in Gift and Estate Planning With a look forward to December 31, 2025, when the current lifetime exclusion levels for estate taxes are slated to sunset, wealth planners and their clients have much to discuss. Valuation and estate planning professionals have a key opportunity to strategize and develop the best plans for family businesses and high-net-worth individuals. With a lo ...

Freedman Normand Friedland LLP v. Cyrulnik—On the Valuation of Contingency Fee Cases and Qualifying as a Fee Expert When there is a consistent and predictable stream of cash flows or a history of royalties for licensed intellectual property, the valuation professional is most comfortable. In the following case, the court addressed admissibility of a valuation expert who was attempting to value an alleged in ...

Under Complex Considerations In Part I of this series, the article presented the fundamental standards used to gain a basis of understanding renewables and valuation drivers. These were presented in the context of an appraisal of wind rights and what would be included, as an example, in a valuation engagement. This second article focuses on the diminution of land values resulting from collateral damage from ...

Beyond Just Updating on the Progress of the Project An informed client is usually a better client. In this article, Rod Burkert shares five reasons calling a client on a Friday is a worthy practice. The phone rings. You recognize the number on caller ID. It’s. THAT. Client. The one you took a retainer from a few weeks ago and who hasn’t heard from you in a while. You know the conversation is going to be awk ...

A Series on Managing Uncertainty and Fear (Part II) Clients may feel isolated or overwhelmed by financial decisions. Create an environment where clients feel safe asking questions and expressing concerns. Make sure to include attorneys, financial planners, etc. to provide comprehensive support. The author, in this second part of the series, shares his strategies to address uncertainty and fear. Read Part I ...

In Small Business Valuations In a recent joint business valuation review engagement, the author and a fellow appraiser discussed whether one should use market value of invested capital (MVIC) or enterprise value (EV) when applying an income approach in business valuation. In this article, the author discusses these two concepts and sheds some light on why one might use one over the other. A recent joint bus ...

Why AI may Undermine Your Credibility as an Expert Witness In a recent New York Surrogate’s Court decision (Matter of Weber, 2024 NY Slip Op 24258), an expert witness’s reliance on Microsoft Copilot for financial calculations led to a notable exclusion of their testimony. The court highlighted the risks of using generative AI for evidence-based tasks, marking a significant moment for experts in accounting a ...

Financial Due Diligence Preparation and readiness for the sell-side process will contribute to maximizing the value of your company and mitigate the risk of surprises at the critical stages of the proposed transaction. The author shares what to expect in a sell-side engagement and what can be done to exit successfully. You have considered the pros and cons to selling your manufacturing and distribution (M ...

From $600 to Over $1 Billion The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other data protection regulations apply to the smallest sole practitioner firm among us to the largest and each must take steps to implement a cybersecurity plan, to follow it, and to respond when an incident occurs. The failure to provide protection can result in fines. In this article, the author describes why Amazon and Goo ...

Part II of II In the previous article, we posed a series of questions to consider when purchasing cyber insurance. In Part II, the authors identify not only how to answer some of the questions posed initially, but also, what value those answers bring. Moreover, the authors identify some of the common gaps and how to address them. Introduction In the previous article, we posed a series of questions to consid ...

Federal Rules and Regulations Governing ESOPs Business valuation reports of employer’s securities owned by ESOPs are subject to review by plan fiduciaries, government agencies, and IQPAs auditing the ESOP’s financial statements. Each of these readers have their own responsibilities to the participants and beneficiaries of the plans. This article will examine the federal rules and regulations governing ESOPS ...

Part I of II When companies suffer a cyber incident, they often look to their insurance policy for coverage to help mitigate financial exposure. Additional external resources also help the insured get back to normal operations. Part I of this series poses several questions to assist insureds or policyholders in thinking through the common issues. Part II will present some strategies to help organizations fu ...

Techniques Used in a Wind Power Valuation Engagement This article is aimed at valuing renewable interests or rights which is straight forward requiring basic application of valuation techniques. Appraisals that consider diminution of land estate values, damage assessments, complex end of life considerations, repowering analysis require more specific analysis and build up methods to establish defensible valu ...

Assessing the Engagement Prospect In this article, the author shares how he crafted an engagement letter that enabled him to earn far more than a fee he was prepared to accept. Understanding a prospect’s motivation and the underlying facts enabled him to craft an engagement letter that worked for both and earned him $10,000 more. By listening to my prospect and understanding the pain he was in, I crafted an ...

An Overview of the Physician Compensation Surveys Beginning in late May each year, numerous industry normative benchmark physician production and compensation surveys begin publishing the most recent year’s reports. When consulting benchmarking survey data for assessing physician compensation arrangements for FMV, it is important to understand and critically evaluate the quality of the data. This article pr ...

A Nuanced Approach to Asset Valuation Marketability refers to the ease with which an asset can be sold, and the DLOM accounts for the reduced liquidity of an asset that is not easily traded in the open market. In business valuation, the DLOM is a critical yet contentious adjustment. This article discusses the underlying issues presented in this type of valuation and uses an example to explain the incrementa ...