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Monthly Archives: January 2019

We have distilled decades of experience at the intersection of law, business and finance into a suite of articles to help our clients make sense of business valuation, forensic accounting, and litigation support. Please visit our site regularly for our latest content.

  The upcoming audit season will bring some new challenges for auditors testing of fair value measurements for financial reporting. Some recent changes due to the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2018 (“TCJA”) will create valuation issues: The reduction in corporate tax rates affected the value both publicly traded investments and privately held investments; Deductibility of interest expense is now limited; Bonus depreciation will further reduce taxes for both new and used equipment purchases; Carryback of Net Operating Losses is no longer allowed and limited to 80% of taxable income; The TCJA moves U.S. taxation to a territorial system. The tax benefits of electing S-Corp. status should be revisited, if used. If relevant to an investment held or to a company acquired, the above will require valuation models to be updated, particularly when valuation is based upon a discounted cash-flow method. Companies that do business with the People’s Republic of China are and will be greatly affected by the Tariffs instituted recently.  It is uncertain how much and how long is to be factored into valuation, but pricing should consider such events. Some other changes in accounting standards also may affect valuations. Starting in 2019 under ASU 2016-02 the accounting for leases will change. The new standard will require that Companies record a liability for operating leases, if the criteria of an “embedded lease” is met. Previously, such a valuation was unnecessary.  For acquisition accounting, such leases will require a valuation, when previously no liability was recorded. The changes […]


  Last week we published the first of three installments of our Delaware Appraiser Series. We reviewed the fair value standard and some notable differences between the fair value standard used in the Delaware Chancery Court and fair market value defined in Revenue Ruling 59-60 of the Internal Revenue Code. There have been some recent developments in the Delaware Chancery Court providing further guidance on fair value. A number of these cases focus on the process used in “shopping” the subject company for sale; particularly when one side is seeking value in excess of an actual transaction. The Court has highly scrutinized or ignored the transactional value, depending on the sale process relied upon in their analysis. We leave the formal “briefing” to you, but we wanted to identify those cases that we think will be of interest. DELL INC V. MAGNETAR GLOBAL EVENT DRIVEN MASTER FUND LTD ET AL DECISION 12/14/17 https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=266610 On appeal, the Delaware Chancery Court revised its opinion as to whether Silver Like Partners had perfected their appraisal rights. Silver Like Partners claimed Dell’s shares were worth more than the management buy-out price of $13.75 per share, a 37% premium to the Company’s ninety-day average unaffected stock price. The Court found that market pricings of Dell’s shares should not have been ignored and were relevant. In its original determination, the Court used a discounted cash flow method only, because the market was determined to be “inefficient.” A key finding in this appeal is summarized below: “The […]