This is the first in a series of posts on the topic of Statutory Fair Value and Business Valuation. In this post, we examine the concept of statutory fair value, especially as it is defined in the state of Delaware as well as the difference between the concepts of “fair value” and “fair market value.”
Welcome to 2016! There will be changes to the focus of the blog in 2016. Read more about the changes here.
When I see stories in the financial press I often think of what lessons business owners can learn from the experiences of others. Perhaps there is a lesson to pay attention to basics in the emerging situation at Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. In this post, we consider Chipotle’s growth, decline, and the valuation relationship between expected growth and risk in light of the circumstances.
Peter Mahler writes the New York Business Divorce blog. Last week, he published his eighth annual list, the Top Ten Business Divorce Cases for 2015. I was interested and pleased to discover that the number one case on the list was that of Chiu v. Chiu, a case in which I testified as an expert witness in 2012.
Two standard questions business appraisers ask clients in the management interview process include: What has been your dividend (or distribution) policy leading to the present? Now this is something of a trick question, because we can infer what the dividend policy has been in the past based on examining financial statements. What do you expect […]
Against the backdrop of the article, “A Missing Boom in Small-Business Sales” and my own thoughts on ownership and management transition, we consider not only why the wave of business transitions hasn’t fully occurred but also what you can do in the interim.
Leveraged dividend recapitalizations and leveraged share repurchases are two corporate finance tools that are available to owners of private companies. These tools can be used to create liquidity outside the ownership of private businesses. Interestingly, as we will see, leveraged dividends and leveraged repurchases have very similar impacts on companies (assuming similar companies and same-sized transactions), and quite different impacts on the owners of the companies. In this post, we will illustrate the impact of a leveraged share repurchase and a leveraged dividend on the same company. This analysis will enable us to see the impact leverage has on the company and also, the different impacts the transactions have on owners.
The moral compass at Volkswagen was evidently not set to true north. The easy way or the cheapest solution in the short run may well be the most difficult way and the most expensive in the long run. Let the example at Volkswagen be a call for all of us to reexamine our moral compasses, both as individuals and as those compasses get translated within our companies. Some of the best decisions are made when we simply say no to the easy road.
“Is Your Business Ready for Sale?” is one of the most pressing question facing business owners today. And the question is important for advisers to businesses, since we are instrumental in asking hard questions and, indeed, have the responsibility for asking hard questions of our private company clients. At the outset of a new series of posts, let me say categorically, I am not, not, not suggesting that your business should be up for sale. Bear with me while we focus on the actual question of “Is Your Business Ready for Sale?”
When speaking to business owners in management interviews, I always ask a couple of question: What has been your dividend policy in the past? And, what do you expect it to be going forward? Interestingly, many business owners reply that they don’t have a dividend policy. At that point, I reply that they have had a dividend policy historically, and that they will have a dividend policy prospectively. Considering this, we seek to answer what is a dividend payout ratio and what are the types of dividends?
