NFTs. Sounds familiar? For sure. But not quite sure what it is? Yeah, me too. NFTs became the newest big thing in popular culture in 2021 when every millennial and Gen Z seem to own one, mint one, or be on the verge of buying one. The first NFT “Quantum” was minted by Kevin McCoy on May 3, 2014 on NameCoins and sold for $1.47 million on June 10, 2021 for which a lawsuit was later filed. Just last year, on March 11, 2021, Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold for $69.3 million as the most expensive NFT ever sold. Sales of NFTs reached $25 billion in 2021 (Source: Reuters) and while mo ..read more

On April 25 the Twitter board of directors accepted Elon Musk’s take-private transaction at $54.20 per share. The total value being provided in the press is $44 billion in some reports and $43 billion in others. Most just throw that out without using precise language like Enterprise Value or Equity Value. From a quick look at Capital IQ, I see the deal value at $41.3 billion from a Market Cap standpoint and $40.5 billion from an Enterprise Value standpoint. My guess is that the announced value has a more precise fully-diluted share count likely baking in the conversion of convertible notes th ..read more

I know many people who are charitably minded, some giving more than 10% of their income to their church, donating large sums to a University or regularly contributing to a charity of choice. There are many tax advantages available to the donor, particularly a tax deduction on your income tax filing. One tax-efficient vehicle I regularly come across is a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). A DAF is a fund, that is a charity. The donor can make donations to the DAF and then direct the DAF to make a donation from the DAF to any 501C3 charity, including the American Red Cross, United Way, Habitat for Human ..read more

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has had terrible widespread effects on everyone around the world. The virus was first identified in China in December 2019 and was officially recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020. Ravaging those who have had either direct or indirect exposure, this devastating microorganism has spread to nearly every country and location throughout the globe. Governments and agencies throughout the world have all taken drastic actions to stem the spread of COVID-19. Fully occupied cruise ships have been left on the open seas, unable to find a port ..read more

Who Should Read This Article? This article opens up the discussion regarding the relationship between customs duties and transfer pricing.  Many of our private sector clients have reached out to us with regards to customs duties concerns, as these have a critical impact on intercompany pricing policies and in many cases, their overall pricing strategy.  In light of such concerns, we would like to investigate the differences between customs and transfer pricing valuation methodologies as well as explore the possibilities of harmonizing the two practices from both operational and comp ..read more

It’s often said that business owners are “asset rich but cash poor”. Surely this isn’t always the case, but the statement suggests that business owners generally have a significant chunk of their net worth tied up in their business. Arguably the most extreme example of this would be Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. According to Bloomberg, Musk has about $3 billion in cash or cash-like assets. On an absolute basis, I certainly doubt that many individuals would argue that having $3 billion in cash constitutes being “cash poor.” The point is, this amount is relatively immaterial compared to h ..read more

This topic has come up a lot recently. The SEC has shown a keen interest in addressing the SPAC fervor. For purposes of this blog post, I am going to assume the reader is familiar with SPACs. If not, many great articles are a quick search away. SPACs have been in the news a lot in recent years not because they are a new vehicle (they have existed for decades), but because the number of SPAC IPOs skyrocketed from hovering at 20 or fewer from 2008 through 2016 to 248 SPAC IPOs in 2020 and 613 in 2021 – raising over $160 billion that year. Though 2022 isn’t anywhere near 2021’s pace, we’ve still ..read more

The expression “You can’t have your cake and eat it too” is a common figure of speech that has been in use since the 1500’s. It essentially illustrates the concept of trade-offs – that is, one cannot both eat their cake and also retain possession of it – once the cake is eaten, it is gone. I think most of us have felt the desire to achieve two attractive outcomes that both can’t occur simultaneously. Companies that sponsor, or are involved in, secondary transactions of their common stock may relate to this expression. In the hundreds of valuations I perform each year, one of the most common q ..read more

If you are wondering what to get the high net worth person who has everything, you should get them into a great Trust & Estate attorney right away to get some estate planning done before 2020 comes to a conclusion. As a valuation firm, we are seeing almost a historic volume of valuations requested as smart high net worth individuals lock in planning under current tax law. In 2020 the most prominent topics for planning have been the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “TCJA”) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES ACT”). The 2018 and 2019 Year-End Estate Planning Adv ..read more

It’s been roughly 260 days since the United States started it’s “15 days to stop the spread” quarantine actions. What a slew of singular events during the 260 days we have since witnessed! We’ve tragically seen roughly 270,000 Americans who have lost their lives from causes including and/or related to COVID-19; various levels of shutdowns and by extension national unemployment which rose precipitously then has struggled to regain footing; national protests for civil rights; devastating wildfires and hurricanes; and all this during one of the most unique presidential elections in American hist ..read more