How Can I Use Your Work?

The entire idea is that you can 'copy-paste' our work into your valuation report. That is exactly what it is intended to do, and why you would purchase from us. To the degree you are willing to share the form of your report section or analysis, we will do our best to make our work look like yours in format, style and content. If you would prefer one of our standard formats, we would be pleased to do that as well. Many valuation professionals send us their analysis spreadsheets, so that we can load data directly into their spreadsheet. In all cases, we keypunch the accounting data exactly as received, and the aggregate categories (e.g. - semi-variable expenses), so that the touchstone of what we received and what we did can be clearly followed.

Who Exactly is Doing the Work?

We're modeled a lot more like a factory than we are a professional practice, so "who" is one of our employees -- it could be one or more of a number of people, depending upon the assignment, the industry, the requirements and the deadline. It makes a big difference if you use us for data loading or you need very thorough, detailed analysis work for litigation support. What you need governs who does the work.

Are They Accredited in Valuation?

Our staff is comprised of highly-trained, experienced professionals. They are all college graduates with their original training provided by us in Business valuation, Industry Analysis, Market Analysis, and Risk Assessment for direct investment (servicing investment banks). They are trained in Financial Analysis and Guideline Company Analysis by our CFA through the practical experience of having worked for years with valuation professionals. Our people are valuation 'associates' - not accredited - so they do the 'grunt work', but leave the expertise to you. Their educational background uniformly includes accounting; we have specialists in diverse fields such as food processing, retailing, restaurants, banking, leasing and other common industries.

Ultimately, all our work is reviewed by a professional reviewer in valuation, typically a CFA or ASA graduate, although other professionals may review certain sections depending upon the assignment.

What is the Turn-Around Time on Project Requests?

Turn-around time on project requests can be as little as overnight, depending upon the project request. Typically, we perform the Descriptive Section of a Valuation Report in a matter of a two-three weeks. This would include:

• Economic Analysis, including national, regional and local economy, with Economic Drivers Affecting Company Value and Summary / Implications for the Target Industry/ Target Company. This is done in Microsoft Word.

• Industry Analysis, including State of the Industry, Underlying Industry Demand Trends, and Industry Value Drivers with Summary / Implications for the Target Company. This could also include a "Porter's Five Forces Model Analysis if required. This is done in Microsoft Word, sometimes with additional work (e.g. - econometrics) in Microsoft Excel.

• Company Financial Analysis, which includes loading of Target Company data into Excel or your chosen valuation program, coupled with Financial Analysis of Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow for common size, growth, and percentage change. This is done in Microsoft Excel (or your chosen valuation program) with the report in Microsoft Word.

• Industry Comparative Analysis that compares the performance of the Target Company to relevant industry norms and metrics of performance. This is done in Microsoft Excel (or your chosen valuation program) with the report in Microsoft Word.

• Market Approach Analysis consists of selecting Comparable Companies, based upon metrics you can select. We typically gravitate towards public company transaction data where possible. We either defer to your selection of guideline companies or, if directed by you, select a group of comparable companies with supporting rationale, and analyze the comparative financial performance between the subject and the guideline companies. We bring you right to the point where you can draw the conclusion of value. This is done in Microsoft Excel (or your chosen valuation program) with the report in Microsoft Word, although statistical analysis may be performed in SPSS.
  

What are the Procedures for Initiating Work?

Initiating work is very simple. We discuss the assignment, where typically you also send us a sample you would like us to use as a 'pattern', and we agree upon the work to be done and the price. Then, you place a retainer with us for the agreed amount and send us the source information (financial statements, company questionnaire), by electronic format (Adobe Acrobat PDF files). We complete the work and ship it to you for your review. Should you have any issues, we will fix them. If we have questions, we will write you immediately.

Once you become comfortable with the process, you'll find it quite simple and user-friendly. Simply send us the information with instructions, and we'll do it for you.

Which databases do you use? Do you subscribe to these?

We have used a variety of valuation databases, such as Pratt's Stats, Done Deals, the IBA database, BizComps and Mergerstat Review. Additionally, we use trade databases; for example, there is a special one ('Baking Business') for bakeries. For the valuation databases, we generally operate from your subscription as we are technically your subcontractor. Nevertheless, for a one-off, if there is a special database you use, we can certainly use it as well. Our people are accustomed to working with very difficult raw data (e.g. - survey research, etc.), so they are not challenged by using different databases and reconciling results.

Note that we maintain our own data warehouse of our proprietary research and analysis, as well as of projects we have done and reference materials. This Data Warehouse is the result of over 10 years of providing deal analysis / risk analysis / valuation to investment banks and venture capital firms. You can think of our Data Warehouse as a database of databases - a web-enabled on-line library.

What guarantees of quality do you provide?

If we do not meet your quality requirements, then you don't pay for it -- pretty simple, really. We guarantee we will meet or exceed the professional standards for the valuation practice. Should you believe our work product does not meet or exceed professional industry standards, we will correct our deliverables at no charge. Your risk here is extremely low, as we have never had a product returned for poor quality.

Our quality control procedures are rigorous and in-line with best practice. We train thoroughly, review in-process, and perform final quality checks as part of the reviewing process before sending you the document. For the Business Valuation BPO division, we are moving toward ISO 9001, although we generally observe the requirements of Mil-Q-9858A, as we are a US Government Contractor.

Upon request we would be pleased to send you some samples of our work, to let you judge our quality for yourself.

©Investor Risk Management Incorporated 2000-2010