This blog has been focused on ownership and management transition, as well as business value, for the last couple of years.  The tag line for the blog has been “Business Value & Ownership in Transition.” My 2014 book, Unlocking Private Company Wealth, and my 2010 book, Buy-Sell Agreements for Closely Held and Family Business Owners, have provided the foundation for a good bit of my writing and speaking for some time.*

After some reflection late in 2015 and reviewing interest from readers both for ChrisMercer.net and my former blog, ValuationSpeak.com, there will be a few changes on this blog beginning this year.

The plan for 2016 is to develop a quarterly topic focus on expressed topics of interest from readers.  At this time, the quarterly focuses will be:

1. Statutory fair value.  My most successful series on ValuationSpeak.com, the former blog, related to statutory fair value.  The plan is to relaunch that series in one of the quarterly focuses.
2. Private company corporate finance.  Posts on dividends and corporate finance topics have been among my most viewed articles in the last couple of years.
3. Buy-sell agreement disputes.  I’ve been writing about buy-sell agreements in general.  However, the greater interest seems to relate to business and valuation issues in buy-sell agreement disputes – and how to prevent disputes in the first place.
4. Transactions and opinions related to them.  This topic relates more to ownership transition than it would seem at first.  And there has been good interest in transactions-related posts in the past.

My objective will be to post once a week on the quarterly topic focus – beginning with statutory fair value.  There will likely be an occasional post on business value as it appears in the news, e.g., like last week’s post on Chipotle.  A number of readers have expressed interest in my writing some about expert witness testimony based on my 30-plus years as a testifying expert.  I’ll attempt to squeeze in a few posts on that topic, as well. There will also be an occasional post in the other categories on the blog.

In addition, I plan on having a number (to be determined) of guest posts for the blog on topics of interest to our readers.

So that’s the plan for 2016.  I hope you will enjoy, appreciate, and learn from the subject matter we will cover.

My best to you all for a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year in 2016.

I look forward to seeing or talking with many of you as the year progresses.  In the meantime, be well!

Chris

* The books are available individually for $25 each (with quantity discounts available), and are also packaged together in an Ownership Transition Bundle.