• Financial Forensics - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    Taking a Deeper Look into Momentive, Part 2

    Why the Choice Between Prime and Treasury Rate Matters Many bankruptcy practitioners have focused on the recent decisions in Momentive[1] that forced secured creditors to refinance prepetition loans at below market interest rates.  Most of these practitioners’ publications focus on the courts’ findings and the potential implication on future matters.  However, three interesting questions are not addressed in most (if any) of these publications.

  • Litigation Consulting - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    Taking a Deeper Look into Momentive, Part 1

    Secured Creditors Lost Almost $200 Million in Economic Value Due to the Imposition of Below Market Interest Rates Many bankruptcy practitioners have focused on the recent decisions in Momentive[1] that forced secured creditors to refinance prepetition loans at below market interest rates.  Most of these practitioners’ publications focus on the courts’ findings and the potential implication on future matters.

  • Litigation Consulting - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    Discount Rates

    The Present Value of Future Lost Profits, and the Time Value of Money Experts estimating the present value of a business’ future lost profits have much less direction from the courts than their counterparts estimating the present value of a person’s lost earning capacity. Professional literature has attempted to fill this gap providing many articles discussing the differing methods for analyzing lost profits (e.g., yardstick, before-and-after, but for) or how to determine the discount rate by applying a weighted cost of average capital, equity rates of return, or some form of risk premium build-up. This article moves away from these…

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    What Drives Business Value?

    SPARC the Analysis and Shine Have you ever asked your clients what drives the value of their businesses? If they feel comfortable that they know what drives their business’ value, have you ever asked them why it does? In this article, first of a two part series, Sarah von Helfenstein shares her thoughts on the kinds of things that we, as business analysts and appraisers, should consider when assessing business value.

  • Litigation Consulting - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Separating Personal Goodwill from Entity Goodwill in the Closely Held Company Valuation

    Guidance from Bross Trucking v. Commissioner (2014) Valuation analysts often have to separate company-owned entity goodwill from shareholder-owned personal goodwill in the valuation of closely held companies. These valuations may be performed for family law, shareholder dispute, breach of contract, or other litigation purposes; for transaction structuring and sale consideration allocation purposes; and for gift tax, estate tax, or income tax purposes.

  • Financial Forensics - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    Internal Profiling for Fraud

    How to Apply Survey Data to Your Company, using K-means Clustering We are in an age when fraud statistics and the individual profiles of those committing the fraud are at an all-time high. How does a firm identify factors that will enable the firm to understand the risk? The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) annual fraud survey—readily available for free—provides valuable insight to prevent fraud. In this article, Elliott Chester shares how K-means clustering is developed and used for profiling employees.

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Freeze Entities

    Use of Synthetic Credit Ratings to Determine the Appropriate Market Yield for the Preferred Equity Interest Among the estate tax planning methods that include grants of “carried” or profit interests, grantor retained annuity trusts, outright gifts, etc., entity freeze is a less known, or perhaps, less utilized tool. Yet, in certain circumstances, a freeze entity can be a compelling wealth transfer mechanism. This article presents an overview of a freeze entity structure, its economics, and a valuation framework specific to freeze entities. The article also offers an example of how practitioners can deal with an important element of the freeze…

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    Unprecedented Rise in Life Insurance Costs

    Are Older Insured’s Doomed to Pay More? Why is the Cost of Insurance suddenly rising?! Is there anything that insureds can do? For decades, carriers explicitly said that COI increases were unthinkable. In this article, the author identifies the reasons given by four carriers for COI increases and looks at what some other carriers have done to mitigate COI increases. This is particularly important for older business owners seeking liquidity.

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Dissecting the IRS Job Aid on S Corporation Tax Affecting

    Background and Objectives of the Job Aid (Part 3 of 3) In the third article of this three part series, the author discusses the remaining portions of the Job Aid, specifically, the Discussion and Analysis Section of the Job Aid which addresses: Evidence-Based Valuation Analysis, Theory-Based Valuation Analysis, and Weighting of Factors and Approaches and shares his views on the value and limits of this document. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Dissecting the IRS Job Aid on S Corporation Tax Affecting

    Background and Objectives of the Job Aid (Part 2 of 3) In the first of this three-part series, the leading cases involving tax-affecting where analyzed; those cases discussed included: Gross, Wall, Heck, Adams, Dallas, Gallagher, Korbel, and Guistina. This second part analyzes the first two parts of the Job Aid by section, the “Executive Summary” and first three subsections of the “Discussion and Analysis”, ending with “Additional Factors for Consideration”.

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Dissecting the IRS Job Aid on S Corporation Tax Affecting

    Background and Objectives of the Job Aid (Part 1 of 3) The release of this series of Job Aids has been hailed by many as a new era of communication and understanding between the Internal Revenue Service, taxpayers, and practitioners. However, in the opinion of this author, and others, releasing these additional documents in such a formal manner seems to be an attempt to influence practitioner behaviors in specific practice areas without statutory support. As was the case with the earlier Job Aid on Discounts for Lack of Marketability, the newest Job Aid contains little new information. Predictably, the position…

  • Practice Management - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    How Social Media Impacts Business Development

    Not all Social Networks Are Created Equal Has your firm embraced social media? Be ready! The days of ignoring social media are long gone. Professional services firms looking to accelerate their growth need to embrace social media and dedicate the resources needed to create a strategy, implement it, and track it. In this article, the author presents research on the impact and value of social media to professional service organizations.

  • Healthcare - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    The Utilization of the Market Approach

    In Appraising Outpatient Enterprises Healthcare related outpatient enterprises provide services that do not require hospital admission and may be performed outside the premises of a hospital. Similar to valuation of any business, valuations of outpatient enterprises should include consideration of the three general approaches to valuation (i.e., the income approach, the market approach, and the asset/cost approach). The specific valuation methods selected under each engagement will be guided by the facts and circumstances surrounding the hypothetical transaction of the subject property interest (e.g., availability of data, nature of the current transactional marketplace). This article focuses on utilizing a market approach…

  • Litigation Consulting - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    Lost Profits: The Reasonable Certainty Standards and the Modern New Business Rule

    While the vast majority of jurisdictions have moved away from the new business rule and adopted the modern new business rule, by which new/unestablished businesses can recover damages, such adoption does not diminish the requirements under the reasonable certainty standard. Given the lack of historical financial performance data and under the lens of the reasonable certainty standard, estimates of lost profits damages to new/unestablished businesses are subject to a higher level of scrutiny. This article focuses on new/unestablished businesses and the importance of post-incident business-specific data/facts to isolate the effects of the disputed event, and to establish a measure of…

  • Healthcare - QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story

    Determination of the Appropriate Standard of Value

    An In-Depth Series on Healthcare Valuation This first installment will discuss Fair Market Value, the most prevalent standard of value in the healthcare industry, and why this is the required standard of value for most healthcare transactions. This article will also discuss the premise of value, which further defines the circumstances of the transaction, and how to determine which methods may be applicable to valuing an outpatient enterprise.

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Probability Based Estimation and the DLOM Calculation

    Refining and Selecting the Appropriate DLOM The discount for lack of marketability (DLOM) is the result of illiquidity. It represents the inability to sell quickly when an investor decides to sell an asset. It is the economic cost of failing to realize gains or to avoid losses during the time period that the investor or closely held business owner is trying to sell the asset or securities. In this article, Marc Vianello describes an approach he describes as more “refined” than other methods for estimating DLOM.

  • Healthcare - QuickRead Top Story

    Common Misconceptions Regarding Healthcare Entity Valuations

    Five Remaining Leading Misconceptions (Part II of II) The following discussion summarizes and responds to common misconceptions many analysts have with regard to the valuation of healthcare entity property and/or services transfers. These analyst misconceptions typically involve a misunderstanding of one or more of the relevant regulatory provisions. These analyst misconceptions typically relate to an erroneous understanding that “the Service only accepts this” or “the Office of Inspector General doesn’t accept that.” These analyst common misconceptions are addressed from the perspective of the regulatory compliance of the valuation analysis. In Part II of II, the article covers the remaining five…