Today’s competitive market helps to create the attraction and real possibility of employee mobility.  James Pooley, author of Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage (Verus Press 2015), shares nine insightful tips every employer should consider and put in practice to protect themselves and their companies. Find out more on the RIA Biz article, click: Ways to ensure your firm’s secr ...

How do you measure the standard valuation of a golf course?  Do you take Donald Trump’s word for it?  CNBC examines Trump’s courses, what was reported, and the average for multiple golf course sales and revenue. Find out more on the CNBC article, click: Trump’s $550M golf empire may be in the weeds. ...

Are you aware of these interesting tips regarding Section 409A?  There may be more to it than you think.  Travis Harms, leading Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Valuation Group, answers eight questions to offer practical and comprehensive information about how Section 409A works. Read more about the results of this report in the Mercer Capital's Financial Reporting article, 8 Things You Need to Know Abo ...

The workplace is exciting and ever-changing.  Think about the evolution from your parent’s jobs to yours.  Landon Dowdy, Reporter for CNBC, examines how the next generation will transform it once again. Find out more on the CNBC article, click: How millennials will reshape the workplace. ...

Auto enrollment vs. signing up for a 401(k) plan on your own.  What’s the difference and can it be detrimental to your retirement saving goals?  Kelley Holland, Special Journalist to CNBC, shares some interesting, if not eye-opening, information on how employee 401(k) plans affect your future and what you should do about it. Find out more on the CNBC article, click: The downside of automatic 401(k) enrollme ...

Key performance metrics for BDCs can help provide insight to the upcoming valuation marks.  Travis Harms, leading Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Valuation Group, looks at fair value measurement in relation to credit spreads and what may be expected in the upcoming portfolio marks. Read more about the results of this report in the Mercer Capital's Financial Reporting article, Portfolio Marks: 2Q15 Outl ...

How can your firm effectively convey its value to clients?  Carl Peterson, CPA, proposes three ways firms can enhance their competitive advantage for you, your firm, your clients, and your prospects. Find out more in the American Institute of CPAs® article, Three Steps to Enhancing Your Competitive Advantage. ...

What is the effect of goodwill impairment charges when comparing large cap stocks versus small cap stocks?  Robert Richardson, a financial analyst with Mercer Capital, examines if higher equity markets have rendered impairment a thing of the past. Find out more in the Mercer Capital's Financial Reporting article, Small Cap Goodwill Impairments on the Rise. This article is republished from Mercer Capital's F ...

Imagine, building your firms profits while also increasing client satisfaction.  There may be some psychology to this.  Consultant Ron Baker explains to Chris Baysden (for the AICPA) how offering different pricing options can help firms do just that in this Q&A. Find out more in the Journal of Accountancy® article, Q&A: To boost revenue, try offering these pricing options. ...

The theme of NACVA and the CTI’s 2015 Annual Consultants' Conference was: Cultivate, Venture, and Achieve.  It did not disappoint. On June 21, 2015, NACVA released its updated professional standards.  Mark Hanson, Mark Kucik, and Carl Sheeler unveiled the updated standards, which become effective August 1, 2015.  The new standards include: Articles VI, Business Valuation Review, and Article VII, Review Enga ...

In 2014, a study by Chicago United documented a lack of diversity in leadership roles within American companies noting that more than 75 percent of executives are white.  This fact should be of concern to big businesses because diversity in leadership roles has real benefits including better customer relationships, increased employee creativity, and improved quality of work.  In this article, by Peter Gomez ...

A recent survey of investment professionals in the CFA Institute reports investor concerns about the use of different accounting standards and rules for SMEs under IFRS and private companies under GAAP.  Karolina Grabowicz, a financial analyst with Mercer Capital, reports how the use of different standards adds complexity and costs to financial reporting.  Issues also arise over the loss of information due ...

Investors, analysts, and pundits remain highly optimistic on the Financial Technology (“FinTech”) sector driven by factors such as technology advancement and evolution, evolving consumer behavior and expectations for digital delivery of financial services, and regulatory response to the financial crisis.  Mercer Capital examines valuation multiples within the FinTech industry over time to see whether public ...

High account balances is an often overlooked risk related to sequence of returns especially for investors within five years of their retirement.  Ron Surz, target-date fund expert and ThinkAdvisor contributor, warns that most target-date investors are in grave peril. Read more about why sequence of returns is so risky in this article at ThinkAdvisor. ...

This blog discusses the four-step process for providing fair value marks for venture capital fund investments in pre-public companies: 1) examining the most recent financing round economics, 2) adjusting valuation inputs to the measurement date, 3) measuring fair value, and 4) reconciling  and testing for reasonableness.   Sujan Rajbhandary, vice president in Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Valuation G ...

Scenario planning, an effective decision-making tool under uncertainty, is underutilized by organizations primarily due to deep-seated cognitive biases that exist.  Drew Erdmann, Bernardo Sichel, and Luk Yeung of McKinsey & Company tell managers how to address these common biases and provide guidance along with a practice cheat sheet on the dos and don’ts of scenario planning. Read more on scenario plan ...

Dispute Defensible Best Practices (Part 1 of 3) TIn this first part of a three part series, the author suggests that while there are many articles about how to properly analyze a life insurance policy to determine its value, the critical analysis that is needed is not to ascertain value, but to determine viability. Professional advisors involved in buy-sell and exit and succession planning will want to foll ...

In this post, Samantha L. Albert, senior financial analyst with Mercer Capital, talks about the FASB’s Simplification Initiative which is designed to make small changes to GAAP that will reduce costs and complexity, while maintaining or improving the usefulness of financial statements. One potential change announced on May 21, 2015 is to ASC Topic 805. The FASB has proposed modifying standards related to ho ...

M&A is an infrequent occurrence among business development companies (BDCs). “Under the external management model, the opportunity for material cost savings is limited, and prices at or near NAV indicate that investors assign little ‘franchise’ value to the lending and origination platforms.” Travis W. Harms, of Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Valuation Group, discusses the recent acquisition of MCG Ca ...

Cram Down Interest Rates (Part I of II) In this two-part series the author provides an overview of the issues confronted by courts and financial experts involved in a commercial real estate (CRE) bankruptcy. In this first part, the author discusses how a financial expert may go about to determine the appropriate interest rate for the underlying claims and analyze the CRE market. In the second part of this s ...