Sample Reports

Videos


Books


  • What Every Business Owner Should Know About Valuing Their Business

  • By Dr. Stan Feldman, Dr. Tim Sullivan, and Roger Winsby

    We have used realistic case studies to show how valuation is used in buying or selling a business to another individual, in business succession planning, in setting a price for an employee to buy into the company, in a financial settlement when a business owner gets a divorce, and in an acquisition by another company.

    Owners and their advisors should know when to have a valuation, what the pros and cons of different valuation methods are, and how to answer the questions that a valuation analyst will ask about the company. This book helps the owner and his/her advisor to manage the valuation process in alignment with the owner's strategic goals.

    This is the first practical guide for business owners on this most important topic! You will learn the answers to these questions:

    • * What is a business valuation?
    • * When should you have a business valuation done?
    • * How much should a business valuation cost?
    • * What are the pros and cons of different valuation methods?

    Easy to read!

    Easy to understand!

    Easy to save money by following the helpful tips for owners included in this book.

    Find out why the "valuation multiples for your industry" quoted by a local business broker can be dangerous to your financial health. Plus advice on:

    • * How to make sure the valuation is accurate; and
    • * How to use valuation information to manage your company better.

  • Principles of Private Firm Valuation

  • By Dr. Stan Feldman

    Principles of Private Firm Valuation combines recent academic research and practical real-world experience to help readers better understand the multitude of factors that determine private firm value. For the financial professionals serving private firms–who are increasingly being called upon to give advice on issues related to firm valuation and deal structure–this comprehensive guide discusses critical topics, including how firms create value and how to measure it; valuing control; determining the size of the marketability discount; creating transparency and the implications for value; the value of tax pass-through entities versus a C corporation; determining transaction value; and the valuation implications of FASB 141R (purchase price accounting), and 142 (goodwill impairment).

    Dr. Stanley J. Feldman (Wakefield, MA) is Associate Professor of Finance at Bentley College, where he currently teaches courses in corporate finance with a focus on business valuation and business strategy at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. He is a member of the FASB Valuation Resource Group and is Chairman and cofounder of Axiom Valuation Solutions.



Podcasts


  • Stanley Feldman On Misreporting Alternative Investment Values (Download .zip)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman, February 2010.
    (CapitalMarket Pulse) Dr. Stanley Feldman, Chairman of Axiom Valuation Solutions, talks about the potential for misreporting alternative investment values by hedge funds and equity funds. (Podcast: 16 m 28 s)

  • Stanley Feldman on the Five Myths of Alternative Investments (Download .zip)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman, October 2009.
    (CapitalMarket Pulse) Dr. Stanley Feldman, Chairman of Axiom Valuation Solutions, talks about the Five Myths of Alternative Investments. (Podcast: 11 m 6 s)

  • Stanley Feldman on Fiduciary Responsibility Post-Madoff (Download .zip)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman, October 2009.
    (CapitalMarket Pulse) Dr. Stanley Feldman, Chairman of Axiom Valuation Solutions, talks about how the Madoff scandal and implementation of FAS 157 (now Topic 820) have increased the level of responsibility for a fiduciary, particularly in relation to valuing alternative investments. (Podcast: 14 m 19 s)

  • 409a Overview (Download Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | .zip)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman, May 2007.
    This Podcast briefing provides an overview of the final IRS regulations that establish new deferred compensation rules under Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code. The primary focus of the briefing is the impact of 409A regulations on companies issuing stock options.

Articles & Papers


  • Axiom Valuation Fair Value Research Project: Predicting Market Prices of Fixed Income Instruments Using Axiom Valuation Solutions' Credit Rating and Fair Value Pricing Platform (2012)(PDF)

  • In the current regulatory environment a necessary but not a sufficient condition for establishing a non-traded asset's fair value price is to demonstrate that the system used to produce it yields an unbiased estimate of a transaction price at the measurement date. This developing standard is being applied by oversight organizations as well as audit firms. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission's Aberrational Performance Initiative is designed to uncover misreporting of fair values of underlying assets of hedge and private equity funds. While many hedge funds only invest in financial securities that trade, many fixed income funds as well as CLOs and CDOs invest in debt instruments that do not trade on a regular basis and for which there is no dealer quote. In cases where dealer bid-asked quotes are available, they often do not accurately reflect the range with which the transaction would take place. In this case, a dealer quote does not meet the fair value financial reporting standard. Since a significant percentage of fixed income securities do not trade on a regular basis and are not routinely priced as a result, other means need to be employed that properly mimic transaction market activity in order to establish a non-traded asset's fair value. This paper is the first of several papers that Axiom Valuation Solutions ("Axiom") will produce, to address this critical issue.

    The research design employed by Axiom is divided into three distinct phases. In the first phase, one tests whether the system can accurately reproduce prices of traded securities. The second phase identifies factors that determine the illiquidity associated with non-traded securities. The third phase combines the results of the first two phases and tests how accurately the system reproduces reported prices at which illiquid securities have been exchanged. This paper reports phase one research results. These results indicate that Axiom's Credit Rating and Fair Value Pricing Platform produces unbiased estimates of market prices.

  • Axiom Valuation Fair Value Research Project: Determining the Fair Value of Debt When the Issuer May Not Be A Going Concern: When is Liquidation Value Fair Value? (2012)(PDF)

  • Default risk is the uncertainty surrounding a firm's ability to service its debts and obligations. The Debt holders of a firm near bankruptcy face significant default risk. If the firm is a going concern at the measurement date but loses this status at some point at or prior to maturity, the traditional YTM approach to calculating fair value will always overvalue the debt obligation. To ensure this does not happen, Axiom Valuation Solutions ("Axiom") first compares the firm's enterprise value with its book value of debt. If there is insufficient coverage, we then employ Merton's contingent claims framework and the underlying Binomial Lattice Model to determine the likelihood that coverage will exceed unity. If the probability is either zero or very low that the coverage ratio will exceed unity at maturity, the fair value of debt is equal to the present value of the liquidation proceeds of assets available at the expected recovery date.

  • Axiom Valuation Corporate Brochure 2011 (PDF)


  • Revisiting the Liquidity Discount Controversy: Establishing a Plausible Range (2004)(PDF)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman

  • Six Myths of Transacting a Private Business (2004)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman

  • Valuing a Highly Leveraged ESOP (2004)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman

  • A Note on Using Option-Pricing Models to Estimate the Value of Control (2004) (PDF)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman

  • Dividend Plan Will Increase the Value of Firms (2003)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman
    Guest Editorial in Boston Business Journal (2004)

  • A Primer on Calculating Goodwill Impairment: Valuation Issues Raised by Financial Accounting Statement 142 (2004) (PDF)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman, revised

    Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman, Chairman of Axiom Valuation Solutions and Associate Professor of Finance, has authored a working paper describing key uncertainties and challenges to business valuation analysts created by recent accounting rule changes by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

    04.28.2004 - This is a revised version of an earlier paper dated May 2002. This version is essentially equivalent to the earlier paper, although the examples used were amended to improve clarity and understanding of what is a difficult and complex subject.

    Summary

    Financial Accounting Standard (FAS) 142 requires that goodwill emerging from acquisitions be tested to determine whether it has been impaired. Prior to FAS 142, goodwill was amortized over as many as forty years with the amortized amount deducted from net income. FAS 142 requires firms to effectively undertake a market test to see if goodwill has been impaired. This test is completed in two steps. The first simply requires a revaluing of the reporting unit. If this value is equal to or greater than the unit's carrying value then goodwill has not been impaired. On the other hand, if the calculated value is less than the unit's carrying value, then step 2 must be undertaken. The purpose of step 2 is to assign the value of the reporting unit to its identified and recognized assets and liabilities. These assets are valued as standalone entities. The sum of recognized asset values less the market value of liabilities is the fair market value of net assets. The difference between the fair market value of the reporting unit and the fair market value of net assets is the implied fair market value of goodwill. If this value is less than the carrying value of goodwill, then the difference is equal to the value of goodwill impairment loss.

    The purpose of FAS 141R and FAS 142 is to provide investors with better financial information as to the success of past acquisitions. In the process of doing this, the FASB has forced firms to deal with a number of thorny and, in some cases, unresolved valuation issues. These issues include:

    • * Valuing the reporting unit from the perspective of hypothetical new buyer or from the perspective of the acquiring firm implementing its strategy for deploying the acquired assets.
    • * Applying a marketability discount to the value of a reporting unit when the unit no longer has equity trading in a liquid market.
    • * Estimating the proper cost of capital when the discounted cash flow approach is used to value the reporting unit.

  • A Note on Using Regression Models to Predict the Marketability Discount (2002) (PDF)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman
    Published in Business Valuation Review, September 2002

    In the September 2002 issue of the Business Valuation Review published by the American Society of Appraisers, Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman, Chairman of Axiom Valuation Solutions, and Associate Professor of Finance, Bentley University, has authored a paper reviewing regression analysis results used in evaluating the size of the marketability discount for privately held firms. The paper that this article was based upon is available here.

    Summary

    Academic research suggests that the size of the marketability discount is in the neighborhood of 13.5% and more recent work has suggested it may be as low as 7.23%. The regression models of Silber, and Hertzel and Smith have provided both the intellectual and empirical basis for these conclusions. These models were initially developed to study the determinants of the marketability discount. It has been suggested that they should now be used as a basis for forecasting the marketability discount. This paper demonstrates that these models should not be used for this purpose because the forecast errors are likely to be large. Moreover, based on the structure of these models and their prediction errors, it is not possible to state with any certainty that a 13.5% marketability discount is statistically different than a discount of say 25%.

  • Business Valuation 101: The Five Myths of Valuing a Private Business (2002)

  • by Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman
    SCORE Guest Feature Article

  • Financial Service Needs of Established Business Owners (2004) (PDF)

  • Dr. Stanley Jay Feldman and Roger M. Winsby, revised

  • Business Values by Industry: Minimum and Maximum Price to Sales Ratios for 40 U.S. Industries (2004) (PDF)

  • by Axiom Valuation Solutions

    This informative pamphlet contains a table of minimum and maximum price to sales ratios, or valuation multiples, for 40 U.S. industries. As the table shows, the range of transaction prices for private businesses is very wide in every industry. Using average or median valuation multiples as a shorthand tool for valuing a business when the ranges of values are so wide is almost certain to generate a misleading valuation.

    SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives)

    Visit Web Site

    Guest Feature Article

    Axiom Valuation was selected as a key small business resource by SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives). Visit www.score.org and click on Business Toolbox/Small Biz Power Links/Biz Planning & Managing to see our link. Also, Dr. Stan Feldman, Chairman of Axiom Valuation, wrote the SCORE web site's Guest Feature article for March 2002.

Axiom Presentations