MACPA's Forensic Valuation Regional Conference is in person ONLY again this year at the Maritime Conference Center. Join us for a packed agenda and network with your peers!
Group registration discounts apply for most programs. Call MACPA for more details.
692 Maritime Boulevard, Linthicum Heights, Anne Arundel County, 21090-1952
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James R. Hitchner is Managing Director of Financial Valuation Advisors www.finvaluation.com and is President of The Financial Consulting Group www.gofcg.org. He is also CEO of Valuation Products and Services www.valuationproducts.com which created and distributes the Business Valuation Standards Compliance Toolkit and presents monthly webinars. He is also Editor in Chief of Financial Valuation and Litigation Expert, a bimonthly journal that presents views and tools from some of the leading experts in valuation, forensics/fraud and litigation services.
Mr. Hitchner is editor/coauthor of the books Financial Valuation: Applications and Models (FVAM), second edition; Financial Valuation Workbook (FVW), second edition, and Valuation for Financial Reporting, Fair Value Measurements and Reporting: Intangible Assets, Goodwill, and Impairment (VFR), second edition, all published by Wiley. He is also coauthor of PPC’s Guide To Business Valuations, 19th edition, published by Thomson Reuters. FVAM and FVW have been adopted by the AICPA for its five-day National Business Valuation School courses and by NACVA for its three-day Advanced Business Valuation courses.
Mr. Hitchner has been recognized as a qualified expert witness and has provided testimony on valuations in numerous state and federal courts. He has also been involved in hundreds of intangible asset valuations and was an ad hoc advisor to the FASB on their deliberations concerning SFAS 141/142 and presented two sessions to the Board on valuing and lifing intangible assets.
He has spent 30 years in valuation services including as a shareholder with Phillips Hitchner Group, partner-in-charge of valuation services for the Southern Region of Coopers & Lybrand (currently PricewaterhouseCoopers), and senior appraiser with American Appraisal Associates. In the valuation area he has coauthored over 20 courses, taught over 60 courses, published over 80 articles, and has made over 180 conference presentations. He is also an inductee in the AICPA Business Valuation Hall of Fame and a two time recipient of the AICPA’s Business Valuation Volunteer of the Year award. He was also one of only four members of the AICPA Business Valuation Standards Writing Task Force and served for the entire six years up to the June 2007 official release of the standards.
Join us for our keynote session with James Hitchner.
Frank McGuire is a Managing Director in the Disputes, Claims, & Investigations group. He has more than 25 years of experience in the quantification of economic damages and offering of related expert witness testimony in all manner of disputes, forensic accounting and fraud investigations, financial statement auditing, and tax consulting. Mr. McGuire has substantial experience in commercial damages matters, conducting complex financial analyses and preparing expert reports for a variety of disputes, including lost profits, lost earnings of persons, business valuation disputes, breach of non-compete/non-solicitation agreements, misappropriation of trade secrets, securities litigation, patent infringement, abusive tax shelters, government contractor disputes, alter ego analyses, and business interruption insurance claims. He has been qualified and testified as an economic expert witness in federal and state court as well as in arbitration proceedings. Mr. McGuire has also conducted numerous forensic accounting and fraud investigations in a variety of matters, including financial statement fraud, asset misappropriation, corruption, white-collar civil/criminal defense, campaign finance compliance, FINRA disciplinary proceedings, and SEC enforcement actions. Prior to joining Stout, Mr. McGuire was a Managing Director at The Claro Group. Prior to that, Mr. McGuire was a Director in the Disputes & Investigations practice at Duff & Phelps, LLC, and he spent 13 years as a member of the Dispute Analysis & Investigations, Audit & Assurance, and Tax practices at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. In addition, Mr. McGuire is a frequent speaker, both locally and nationally, on subjects including commercial damages, lost earnings of persons, fraud and forensic accounting, and business valuation.
Professional Memberships
• National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts
• National Association of Forensic Economics
• American Economic Association
• Licensing Executives Society
• American Bar Association, Litigation Section
This session will provide an overview of the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) and its role in a litigation context, with a particular emphasis on Build-up Methods to developing the Cost of Equity Capital. Topics may include sources of information, selection of premiums/discounts, the use of professional judgment, applicability of methods to private vs. public companies, tax-affecting, and issues specific to small companies.
This session will explore the dynamic landscape of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and decentralized finance (DeFi). With a focus on practical insights and actionable knowledge, attendees will learn about: • Key characteristics of digital assets and their evolving role in the global economy. • Legal and tax implications of cryptocurrency transactions, including the latest IRS regulations and guidance. • Strategies for valuation and cost basis tracking in a highly volatile market. • Challenges and solutions in identifying income from mining, staking, and airdrops. • The integration of blockchain technology with traditional financial practices. Michael will share his expertise working as a financial expert witness/ consultant and tax attorney within the digital asset space, equipping financial analysts with the tools needed to navigate this complex field confidently. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of how digital assets intersect with valuation, taxation, and reporting, ensuring they are prepared for the challenges of advising clients and attorneys in this rapidly growing sector.
As the co-founder and managing member of Vallit Advisors, Mark W. Norris provides diverse litigation support services to the legal community including business valuations, expert testimony, economic loss calculations, and consulting on fraud detection and prevention. He has developed significant valuation experience in the healthcare industry and provides valuation-related consulting to management teams of regional medical centers. Mr. Norris is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA), Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV), Master Analyst in Financial Forensics (MAFF) and an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) by the American Society of Appraisers.
In September of 2021, Mark was recognized by the Maryland-DC State Chapter Board of NACVA for his outstanding contribution to NACVA and the business valuation profession.
Many times, business valuation analysts do not prepare a thorough analysis of working capital when preparing a business valuation. If one is involved in the purchase and sale of businesses, they understand how important working capital becomes at settlement. This session will not only cover the basics of analyzing working capital when performing a business valuation, but will provide various examples of how to successfully account for working capital in various situations.
Alan Zipp is a Certified Public Accountant, Attorney at Law, Certified Valuation Analyst, Certified Business Appraiser, AICPA Accredited in Business Valuation, Certified Fraud Examiner, author, lecturer, and discussion leader for the American Institute of CPAs. Since 1970 he has provided specialized tax and financial planning advice to individuals and small businesses. He has a Master of Science degree in Taxation and has completed graduate work in Management Information Systems at the Wharton School.
In addition to tax matters, he has developed a specialty in the area of divorce tax and financial planning and related litigation support services. In 1980 he wrote his first book, Divorce: Tax Facts and in 1985 his second, Handbook of Tax and Financial Planning for Divorce and Separation, published by Prentice-Hall, Inc. He was awarded first place in the American Bar Association's Family Law Section essay contest for his article,
"Divorce Valuation of Business Interests: A Capitalization of Earnings Approach," Family Law Quarterly, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, 1989. He wrote chapter 18 of the John Wiley & Sons' Handbook of Financial Planning for Divorce and Separation on the topic of business valuations for divorce purposes. He wrote the AICPA self-study course Business Valuation Methods, for CPA training in this fascinating field. He authored Divorce: Tax and Financial Planning: A Short Course for the College for Financial Planning. He wrote Divorce: Valuation, Tax, and Financial Strategies, published by Research Institute of America as part of its tax advisor's planning series. He wrote the Small Business Valuation Case Study course for the AICPA's Advanced Business Valuation education program. He wrote Analyzing the Value of Your Client's Business: A Short Course for the College for Financial Planning.
Alan Zipp has written numerous articles and papers on topics ranging from tax matters, litigation support issues, business valuation, and legal issues. For more than 20 years he was an AICPA instructor for various courses including the annual AICPA Corporate and Individual Income Tax Workshops. He regularly presents lectures and seminars before professional organizations including local CPA and Bar associations, national organization conferences, State CPA Societies, and AICPA conferences and seminars. He served on the AICPA steering committee on Divorce where he was involved in the planning of the annual conferences on the CPAs Role in Divorce Tax and Financial Planning.
In the course of his practice, Alan Zipp has been called on to provide expert witness testimony at divorce trials on a wide range of tax and financially related issues including pension and business valuations. He was Chairman of the Montgomery County, Maryland Bar Association's Taxation Section and was elected Treasurer of that Bar Association.
The importance of using the proper standard of value in every appraisal cannot be overstated. Using the wrong standard of value can result in the wrong value being applied to the business. Depending on the purpose of the appraisal, the wrong value opinion can be so serious that: The appraiser risks a malpractice lawsuit; A dissenting stockholder litigation results in an erroneous court decision; The client pays too much for a business; The client can't sell the business because it is overprices; The client misses an opportunity to purchase a business; The IRS claims excess estate, gift, or income taxes; or The client gives up too much marital property in a divorce. This session will explain several standards of value with reference to authoritative sources and provide detailed illustrations and court decisions to provide reference material for the practitioner. The Maryland Appraisal Statute for dissenting stockholder valuations using Fair Value will be illustrated. Several standards of value, including fair market, fair value, investment value, divorce value, intrinsic value and others will be discussed.
This session is still being planned.