The successful hiring and use of an expert to value a business or corporation in a shareholder dispute represents one of the most critical parts of the litigation process. Valuation is as much of an art as it is a science and, as a consequence, there are a variety of parameters which must be carefully considered and tailored to the needs of your specific case. Valuation experts can be helpful not only in the ultimate assessment of the value of a business or an interest, but also in targeting the course of discovery and the litigation.
Corporations generally cannot be realistically evaluated by a simplistic approach based solely on book value. Rather, there are a variety of critical factors that must be considered, such as: good will; investment value of a business in terms of actual profit; issues relating to discounting the value of a minority interest; and issues of the companies’ base capital structure. Brown v. Brown, 348 N.J. Super. 466, 477 (App. Div. 2002).
