This post will focus on seven critical things you need to know about your company’s dividend policy. In summary: 1) Every company has a dividend policy; 2) Dividend policy influences return on business investment; 3) Dividend policy is a starting point for portfolio diversification; 4) Special dividends enhance personal liquidity and diversification; 5) Dividend policy does matter for private companies; 6) Dividend policy focuses management attention on financial performance; and 7) Boards of directors need to establish thoughtful dividend policies

This is a two-part series on the topic of dividends. We begin with an initial discussion of what dividends are, and then in the next post, we will talk about the “7 Critical Things to Know About Your Company’s Dividend Policy.”

After being involved with many business transactions over many years, I’ve realized that there are at least seven ways that potential investors look at a business. Not every investor will look from every perspective. There are, of course, financial buyers and strategic buyers, and their perspectives will likely not be the same and not all perspectives will be relevant for every company. However, these various perspectives are worth discussing for your consideration.

Ownership and management transitions for business owners are key topics of this blog. Sometimes, however, when I talk to business owners, they tend to believe that their businesses will be immune to the processes I’m talking about. After all, a few of us are going to live together, right? To put the concept of business ownership into perspective, this post discusses 10 reasons that business ownership changes hands. The list is not all-inclusive, but perhaps, as you read down the list, you will begin to see that this ownership transition thing could actually happen to you.

My blogging activity recently has been a bit slow.  I haven’t learned the art, if that is what it is, of blogging during intense periods of work.  This post is offered as a form of apology for my absence from ChrisMercer.net. I was in Tokyo earlier this month and spoke on the topic of “The […]

There are two kinds of value for your business: 1) Value to you as an owner, and 2) Transferable value. These concepts are important to understand as we talk about successful ownership and management transitions.

I spoke at the 2013 RICS Asia Valuation Conference in Tokyo this morning (November 6, 2013). The theme of the conference was “Asset Valuation: The Lifeblood of Global Financial Markets.” My general session talk was titled “The Value of Brands Is In or At The Margin.”

The International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC) is having its Annual General Meeting in Tokyo this week.  The Professional Board and Standards Board will hold their public meetings this week.  The Board of Trustees will also meet and participate in the Annual General Meeting.  In addition, there will be a meeting of the IVSC Advisory Forum, […]

If you have funds invested with asset managers, you almost certainly get monthly or quarterly reports on performance, or the yield, or the return on your portfolio for the preceding month, quarter or year. And the performance of your portfolio will be “benchmarked” against appropriate indices of comparable investments. Unfortunately, this concept of managing wealth by reporting on financial performance does exist with most closely held and private companies.

A number of One Percent Solution Activities were identified in the earlier post, including wealth manager compensation, annual appraisals for monitoring performance, buy-sell agreement pricing, life insurance funding, estate planning, and others.  It is now time identify a number of One Percent Solution Strategies for managing private wealth.