• QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Key Takeaways from Professor Aswath Damodaran’s 2026 Edition of Equity Risk Premiums: Determinants, Estimation, and Implications

    April 29, 2026

    In March 2026, Professor Aswath Damodaran released the seventeenth edition of his ERP study. Each annual installment incorporates updated market data; changes in macroeconomic conditions; and new research and empirical findings. It is a living dataset and framework that evolves with markets and time. The author provides key takeaways from the 2026 edition. Overview and Central Thesis This article provides key takeaways for readers from Professor Aswath Damodaran’s recently released 2026 equity risk premium (ERP) annual update.[1] These annual updates began in 2009.[2] Each installment incorporates updated market data (implied ERP’s, country premiums, etc.); changes in macroeconomic conditions; and new…

  • Financial Forensics - QuickRead Top Story

    First Brands and the Cockroach Theory

    November 19, 2025

    The recent bankruptcies of First Brands, a large auto parts supplier, and Tricolor, a car dealership chain, have renewed concerns about lending practices more than two years after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. That earlier failure was driven by rising interest rates that reduced the value of its bond holdings and caused panic across the banking sector.  Appraisers may regard these as isolated instances rather than evidence of a broader financial crisis. Either way, the author proposes that business valuation professionals should consider these issues when completing current business valuation engagements. Introduction MSN[1] recently quoted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie…

  • Litigation Consulting - QuickRead Top Story

    Valuation Issues When Quantifying Economic Damages: For International Arbitration Proceedings

    September 10, 2025

    This article highlights key valuation issues that are debated during arbitrations, which we have faced on numerous occasions. Some of the most important ones that come up during the quantification of economic damages in international arbitration are biases in financial projections, questions about discount rate, and some secondary concerns. Introduction Economic damages are seen as the Holy Grail of any international arbitration. The amount of compensation for financial losses is the ultimate goal of the claimant, who seeks to be compensated for the damage suffered, but that amount is also the main concern for the respondent, who may be responsible…

  • QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Incorporating Country Risk Premium Differentials

    March 2, 2022

    Into the Market-Based Valuation (Part II of II) This is the second of the two-part article regarding country risk. In this second part, the author discusses how to incorporate the risk into multiples. Read Part I here. Incorporating Country Risk into Multiples Having found the value of the country risk premium required, we can proceed with incorporating it into the market-based valuation. It is worth mentioning that the decisive feature for determining the difference in country risk is the area of activity, not the location of the corporate headquarters. Our goal is to determine what should be the multiple if…

  • QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Incorporating Country Risk Premium Differentials

    February 23, 2022

    Into the Market-Based Valuation (Part I of II) This is a two-part article on how to incorporate country risk premium. The market-based approach to valuation is commonly used by market practitioners and is based on the relevant values and multiples from similar assets. One of the differentiators between assets is the country risk related to the operations, when the multiples are collected from various countries. This paper presents the proposed approach to incorporate country risk premium differentials into the multiples. It describes the possible ways of obtaining the country risk premium and the procedure of making the adjustment to the…

  • QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    StraightTalk Webinar Series

    December 2, 2020

    Business Valuation in a COVID-19 World—Cost of Capital, Growth Rates, and Uncertainties Jim Hitchner, Managing Member of Valuation Products and Services (VPS), unveiled the first of a series of two-hour webinars that targets business valuation and litigation support professionals seeking an intermediate level program. This is a review of the first webinar titled “Business Valuation in a COVID-19 World—Cost of Capital, Growth Rates, and Uncertainties”. This article summarizes the issues discussed during this first webinar. [su_pullquote align=”right”]Resources: Best Practices in Business Valuation—A Practical Approach to Advanced Issues and Applications [/su_pullquote] On October 29, 2020, Jim Hitchner, Managing Member of Valuation…

  • QuickRead Featured - QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    How Not to Use Duff & Phelps Data

    July 2, 2019

    A Discussion of Rover Pipeline, LLC v. 10.55 Acres of Land, More or Less, in Ashland County, Ohio, et al. “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” This famous saying has been attributed to various people, but it implies that when data is presented, the conclusion can be trusted. However, the Ohio District Court’s decision in Rover Pipeline, LLC v. 10.55 Acres of Land, More or Less, in Ashland County, Ohio, et al., demonstrates that data is only trustworthy if it is understood and applied correctly. The case, in which the expert’s valuation report was discarded due in…

  • Valuation/Appraisal

    Damodaran Data Page Available

    May 7, 2014

    Professor, Aswath Damodaran, of the NYU Stern School of Business has released his 2014 Data Page online. Updated annually and exhaustively researched, the data page offers in-depth information on 41,000 companies in 131 worldwide markets, including measures of operation, leverage, pricing, equity risk premiums and country risk. One of the major changes to this year’s data page was the switch from Value Line to Morningstar, Bloomberg and Capital IQ for all U.S. firms. You can review the data page at the link below. [button color=”blue” link=”http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/New_Home_Page/data.html” target=”_blank” font=”arial” align=”left”]Read Full Article[/button]