Track B: Technical Valuation Issues: Valuation Adjustment

Valuation is a critical, and often hotly disputed, issue in most bankruptcy cases. Enterprise valuations drive creditor recoveries, and solvency valuations are often outcome-determinative for the success (or failure) of fraudulent transfer and other bankruptcy-related litigation. As a result, valuation disputes often become mini-battles of the experts, the reasonableness of their assumptions and their relative credibility. Disputes usually center around those items where the expert has made subjective adjustments based on professional judgment, and even small adjustments can lead to substantial differences in value. This panel explores those issues that are most often “adjusted” based on professional judgment, including normalizing EBITDA, methodology weighting, treatment of excess cash, control premiums, minority discounts, liquidity discounts, and contingent assets and liabilities.