Successful Exit Key to Current Performance—and Future Sponsorship Opportunities Chris Manderson at PE Hub writes that in the private equity world today, sponsors’ track records in successfully exiting investments are a major factor in fundraising. If sponsors cannot exit previous investments and provide returns, they will find it much more difficult to raise subsequent funds:
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Authors of New Book Describe How Ability to Bring in New, High-Quality, Well-Paying Clients Consistently is Key Bruce H. Rogers and Russ Alan Prince are the co-authors of the just published book Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Service Firms Become Thought Leaders. At Forbes, the authors detail how a strong referral strategy is critical to a profitable, growing business, and that one of the best ways to build a referral network is by establishing yourself as a thought leader:
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Arizona Board of Appraisal Dismisses USPAP Complaint Filed by Chase On August 10, the Appraiser’s Guild blog reports, the Arizona Board of Appraisal dismissed the USPAP violation complaint filed by Chase Bank against John Dingeman on initial file review:
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Study: More Deals Occur in Countries That Follow Similar Financial-Reporting Standards At CFO.com Kathleen Hoffelder reports that dissimilar national accounting standards and the lack of adherence to international financial reporting rules seem to be a major deterrent to companies eyeing targets beyond their borders, according to a recent academic study. Moreover, cross-border acquisitions by companies of target firms in countries with similar accounting strictures tend to relieve CFOs and other senior executives of financial and administrative burdens, says Shawn Huang, assistant professor at the University of Arkansas and one of the survey’s authors, along with Jere Francis, a professor at…
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Few Companies with Under 100 Employees Have Fraud Controls in Place Small businesses are significantly more likely than their larger counterparts to neglect instituting basic antifraud controls that could save them from costly losses, a recent worldwide survey shows. The Journal of Accountancy reports in the August issue:
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The U.S. Must Cut $800 or $900 billion From Our Annual Government Spending to Maintain Mid-term Economic Solvency. And That’s Just the Beginning. Flooding the system with trillions of dollars and deficits has bought the U.S. economic stagnation, writes Rob Slee in an August 20, 2012 post at MidasNation. “What a lost opportunity. One thing we learned in MidasNation over the past few years is that when owners ignore the exponentially changing market and put their heads even deeper in the sand, only bad things result. Further, incremental actions will not change the equation for the better either.…
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New Rule Intended to Help Inform Mortgage Applicants of How Value Is Determined The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released Wednesday a new proposed rule that would require mortgage lenders to provide home loan applicants with appraisal reports to determine how the value of a property was determined, reports Tory Barringer at DS News, an outlet that focuses on the mortgage default servicing industry. CFPB proposed the rule in response to a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that requires creditors to provide mortgage applicants with a copy of written appraisals and home value estimates. The newly-proposed rule would require that…
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Key Strategies Include Building Competitive Intelligence, Reading Trade Media, Innovation and Response to Trends, and More. Bruce Marcus at CPA Trendlines offers a guide to trend-spotting for accountants:
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Survey Shows Half of Respondents are Considering Cloud Solutions, and Three Quarters Believe Cloud Strategies Will Be Important for Their Firm’s Success Within 12-18 Months Christine Camara at Accounting Web reports that a majority of top finance executives in US companies foresee Cloud computing lowering costs and helping their businesses succeed in the near future, according to a new survey – The Business Value of Cloud Reporting: A Survey of Senior Finance Executives. More:
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Recommendation Framework Paper Available; Comment Period Ends October 31st. Late last month the FASB released its initial staff recommendations on whether and when it will be appropriate to adjust financial reporting requirements for private companies, the Journal of Accountancy reports. The recommendations are contained in a paper, Private Company Decision-Making Framework: A Framework for Evaluating Financial Accounting and Reporting Guidance for Private Companies. FASB on Tuesday invited stakeholders to comment on the recommendations. In May, the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF), FASB’s parent organization, created the Private Company Council (PCC). The new council will identify, deliberate, and vote on proposed changes, which will…
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Beyond Deal Price, Consider Deal Structure, Earnouts, and Appropriate Standard of Value When one company is acquiring another, the deal price is often the primary factor considered. Too many times, however, critical issues are overlooked, explains Sean R. Saari, CPA/ABV, CVA, MBA. Smart Business spoke with Saari about five questions any business valuation any acquirer needs to consider:
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Plan for Death, Disability, and a Partner Wanting Out. Here’s Why. John P. Napolitano, CEO of U.S. Wealth Management in Braintree, Mass., and 2012 president of the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts, explains why it’s critical to think about the future, even if you’re overwhelmed with work today:
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Regular Marketing is Important, and Existing Clients Are One of the Best Sources of Referrals. Here’s How to Get the Best Return on Marketing Investment. Ed Mendlowitz regularly fields questions from readers at CPA Trendlines. Recently he opined on the importance of regular marketing. One tip: leverage your existing clients for referrals. Specifically, he adds:
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Today Individual Federal Gift Law Exemption is $5.12M. In Months it May Drop to $1M. Result: Surging Demand for Appraisals. Lou Carlozo at Reuters reports that faced with the possibility of the lifetime gift tax exemption dropping precipitously next year and the estate tax rate rising, wealthy individuals are rushing to transfer their assets to family members. More:
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Restaurant Chains Have Managed to Combine Quality Control, Cost Control, and Innovation. Can Health Care? Physician and writer Atul Gawande publishes an essay in the New Yorker today that discusses how the Cheesecake Factory delivers good food at reasonable prices while meeting rigorous metrics (it throws away only 2.5% of all its groceries, for instance), and explores whether and how the lessons of Cheesecake Factory efficiency can be effectively applied to today’s hospitals. Only a quarter of physicians are self-employed today, Gawande notes, which is a remarkable turnaround from only a decade ago when the majority were self-employed. Most are…
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Of an Estimated $72B Raised by U.S. Buyout Sponsors Through Mid-Year, 43% Has Gone to Mega-Funds PE Hub opines that while many LPs claim they favor small- to mid-sized business investments, that this year the numbers are beginning to tell a different story. There is increased investment in buyout funds doing deals of $1 billion or more in size. It may be that mega-funds while less are simply the only place public pensions and other big institutions can deploy the large slugs of the capital needed to keep their GP stables a manageable size:
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Six Initial Public Offerings Seek to Raise $1.1 Billion The IPO market is set for its biggest week since Facebook Inc.’s FB +4.98% troubled offering in May, with Manchester United Ltd. and the operator of Outback Steakhouse among those scheduled to hit the tape, reports the Wall Street Journal. More:
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Bond King Says Stocks are Dead: Believes Consistent, Annual Returns Are “Thing of the Past.” On the Horizon? Inflation. “The cult of equity is dying,” Bill Gross wrote in his August Investment Outlook, the Wall Street Journal’s Market Beat blog reports. “Like a once bright green aspen turning to subtle shades of yellow then red in the Colorado fall, investors’ impressions of ‘stocks for the long run’ or any run have mellowed as well.” Gross points out stocks have averaged a 6.6% annual gain on an inflation-adjusted basis since 1912. But he labels that rate of return as an “historical freak”…
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CPA Firms Emphasize Privacy Efforts as Pressure Mounts From Regulatory Requirements, Professional Standards, and Client Expectations CPA firms and other businesses that maintain confidential client data are vulnerable to external and internal threats, including inadvertently leaking data and being targeted by hackers, reports the Journal of Accountancy. Seven steps can help businesses assess which data need protecting, upgrade defenses, and draft and practice an incident-response plan. The following steps can help firms mitigate the risk of a reputation-damaging data breach:
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Enterprise Value is a Perpetuity Concept, but Shareholder Level Values Depend on Expected Holding Periods. Here’s Why the Difference Matters. The conceptual logic regarding the income approach is difficult to refute, writes Chris Mercer on the Valuation Speak blog. What can cause expected cash flows to minority shareholders to be less than the expected cash flows of the enterprise? What can cause the expected growth in value, from the minority shareholder’s perspective, to be less than the expected growth in value for the enterprise from the viewpoint of a purchaser today? What factors create additional risks for minority shareholders, in…