Upcoming Webinar

VPS Straight Talk Series - Continuing Professional Education on Business Valuation & Litigation

Continuing Professional Education on Business Valuation & Litigation

Upcoming Webinars: 

Tuesday, January 27, 2026, 1:00 – 3:00 PM ET

Best Practices: Valuing Small Businesses – The Market Approach

Speaker: Harold G. Martin, CPA/ABV/CFF, ASA, CFE

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Webinar Description:

Join Harold Martin for an in-depth, practical discussion on valuing a small business using the Market Approach.  The session will discuss use of both the Guideline Transaction Method and Guideline Public Company Method and the issues to be considered when using these to value a small business.

Learning Objectives:

Using a detailed case study (including report language), the participant will learn:

  • How to apply best practices when using the Market Approach to value a small business
  • How to defend your analysis
  • How to select the proper level of reliability of the alternative methods

Webinar Outline:

  • Review of the Guideline Transaction Method
  • Review of the Guideline Public Company Method
  • Determining “comparability”
  • When to apply each method
  • Level of reliance on each method
  • Limitations on use for valuing a small business
  • Illustration of each method using a case study

Handouts:

  • VPS Webinar slides
  • Sample Report Section
  • Following the webinar, attendees will have access to a video recording of the program

About the Presenter:

Harold G. Martin, CPA/ABV/CFF, ASA, CFE

Harold is a managing director for the Financial Consulting Group, LLC, and a director and former partner-in-charge of the Valuation and Forensic Services Practices. He is also an adjunct faculty member of The College of William and Mary Raymond A. Mason School of Business, where he teaches forensic accounting in the Master of Accounting program. 

He has over 40 years of experience in valuation and forensic services, public accounting, and financial services. He has appeared as an expert witness in federal and state courts, has served as a federal court appointed forensic accountant for receiverships, and has served as a court-appointed neutral business appraiser. He is an inductee into the AICPA Business Valuation Hall of Fame and is also a two-time recipient of the AICPA Business Valuation Volunteer of the Year award. He is a former member of the AICPA Business Valuation Committee, former commissioner of the AICPA National Accreditation Commission, former editor of the AICPA ABV e-Alert, and former editorial adviser and contributing author for the AICPA CPA Expert. He has taught over 50 AICPA courses on valuation and forensic accounting, including AICPA National Business Valuation School, AICPA BV Exam Review Course, and AICPA Expert Witness Skills Workshop.  He created and served as chair of the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants Forensic & Valuation Services Conference.  

He is a coauthor of Financial Valuation Applications and Models, 1st–5th eds. And a contributing author to Cost of Capital: Estimation and Applications, 2nd–4th eds.

Tuesday, February 17, 2026, 1:00 – 3:00 PM ET

Hitchner’s Annual New Year BV Update

Speakers: Jim Hitchner CPA/ABV/CFF & Harold Martin, CPA/ABV/CFF, ASA, CFE

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Webinar Description:

  1. Are you behind in your reading?
  2. Is your new year’s resolution to review that stack of publications on your desk?
  3. Are you still unsure about many valuation issues?

This webinar will help you keep that resolution, clear that clutter, and update you on new issues in business valuations. We will only present what we believe to be some of the most important pieces of BV information from 2025. This will include only NEW concepts, data, models, and methods in such areas as the income approach, cost of capital, inflation, growth rates, the guideline company transactions method, the guideline public company method, discounts and premiums, reports, BV standards, poll results, expert testimony, and implications of artificial intelligence on valuation.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will learn the following:

  • MythBusters greatest hits
  • How will artificial intelligence impact valuation?
  • Cost of capital benchmarks chart updated
  • Alternative rate of return data (Venture capital rates of return and the Pepperdine studies)
  • When valuing a minority interest, can you value the company on a control basis and not apply a DLOC?
  • Is USPAP the only generally accepted appraisal standard?
  • What is the Business Valuation Resource Panel exposure draft entitled “Is the Business Appraiser You Intend to Hire Competent for the Assignment?” all about?
  • Can you value a real estate holding company or FLP using the net asset value method?
  • Should working capital be normalized to determine any surplus or deficit?
  • Should all interest-bearing debt be added back to determine working capital for invested capital?
  • Does undistributed excess cash increase the value of a business?
  • What are the best models for determining the cost of equity?
  • Allocating personal goodwill for divorce
  • Discounting of non-operating assets
  • Are gift tax valuations valued in the hands of the donor or donee?
  • What does the IRS expect to see in a business valuation report?
  • Current issues in the valuation of pass-through entities

Handouts:

  • VPS Webinar slides
  • Various related articles
  • Publication citations
  • Following the webinar, attendees will have access to a video recording of the program

About the Presenters:

 James R. Hitchner, CPA/ABV/CFF

Jim 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 (VPS) www.valuationproducts.com. 

Mr. Hitchner is editor/coauthor of the books the Hitchner Pratt Fishman Consensus View Q&A Guide to Financial Valuation and the VPS DLOM Guide and Toolkit, published by VPS. He is also editor/coauthor of Financial Valuation Applications and Models (FVAM), fifth edition; Financial Valuation Workbook (FVW), fifth edition; and Valuation for Financial Reporting: Fair Value, Business Combinations, Intangible Assets, Goodwill, and Impairment Analysis, third edition, all published by Wiley. FVAM and FVW have been adopted by the AICPA for its five-day Business Valuation School. These two books are also used by the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (“NACVA”) for its three-day Advanced Business Valuation course. NACVA also uses the Discount for Lack of Marketability Guide and Toolkit as part of this course.

He has spent over 44 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 150 articles, and has made over 400 conference and webinar 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 the four original 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.

Harold G. Martin, CPA/ABV/CFF, ASA, CFE

Harold is a managing director for the Financial Consulting Group, LLC, and a director and former partner-in-charge of the Valuation and Forensic Services Practices. He is also an adjunct faculty member of The College of William and Mary Raymond A. Mason School of Business, where he teaches forensic accounting in the Master of Accounting program. 

He has over 40 years of experience in valuation and forensic services, public accounting, and financial services. He has appeared as an expert witness in federal and state courts, has served as a federal court appointed forensic accountant for receiverships, and has served as a court-appointed neutral business appraiser. He is an inductee into the AICPA Business Valuation Hall of Fame and is also a two-time recipient of the AICPA Business Valuation Volunteer of the Year award. He is a former member of the AICPA Business Valuation Committee, former commissioner of the AICPA National Accreditation Commission, former editor of the AICPA ABV e-Alert, and former editorial adviser and contributing author for the AICPA CPA Expert. He has taught over 50 AICPA courses on valuation and forensic accounting, including AICPA National Business Valuation School, AICPA BV Exam Review Course, and AICPA Expert Witness Skills Workshop.  He created and served as chair of the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants Forensic & Valuation Services Conference.  

He is a coauthor of Financial Valuation Applications and Models, 1st–5th eds. And a contributing author to Cost of Capital: Estimation and Applications, 2nd–4th eds.

Continuing Professional Education on Business Valuation & Litigation

Jim Hitchner’s Valuation Products and Services (VPS) provides tools to assist practitioners in business valuation, litigation services, and forensics and fraud.

Valuation Products and Service, LLC is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be addressed to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 700, Nashville, TN, 37219-2417. Web site: www.nasba.org. Some online programs sponsored by VPS are administered by the Virginia Society of CPAs. For more information regarding CPE, refund, complaint, program cancellation or other policies of the Virginia Society of CPAs, visit vscpa.com/CPEPolicies or call (800) 733-8272.

The VPS StraightTalk webinar series brings you outstanding continuing professional education on business valuation and litigation topics. Unless otherwise noted, all webinars are targeted at an intermediate program level, qualify for two hours of CPE credit, and begin at 1:00 p.m. ET. With our simple flat pricing plan, your entire office (up to 20 people) can join us for this 100-minute presentation, earn two hours of CPE credit, and receive an archive recording for $299. Contact jkern@valuationproducts.com if your firm will have more than 20 attendees. More information on the VPS StraightTalk webinar series can be found here.