About the Authors

R. James (Jim) Alerding, CPA/ABV, is the owner of Alerding Consulting, LLC, in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a CPA and holds the AICPA specialty designation of Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV). Mr. Alerding has over 57 years of financial/accounting/investment experience, including over 40 years of business valuation experience. He has taught over 40 valuation courses, published numerous articles, and made hundreds of business valuation presentations. He has been recognized as an expert witness in numerous states and in state and federal courts across the United States and has testified over 400 times in depositions and trials. Mr. Alerding was a member of the writing task force for the AICPA Statement on Standards for Valuation Services No. 1 (VS100), and is a past member of the AICPA Business Valuation Subcommittee and an AICPA Business Valuation Hall of Fame member. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Xavier University with a bachelor's degree in accounting. Mr. Alerding currently serves as legal editor for Business Valuation Resources.

Rosanne J. Aumiller, CPA/ABV, ASA, (retired) was a director at Citizens Valuation Advisory in Cleveland, Ohio, part of Citizens Capital Markets, Inc., a subsidiary of Citizens Financial Group. Ms. Aumiller provides business valuation and related consulting services to a wide variety of private and public companies. She has over 25 years of professional experience and has performed valuations for financial reporting, estate and gift tax planning, business succession, shareholder disputes, litigation support, and a variety of other purposes. Prior to joining Citizens, she provided these services while a director at Grant Thornton LLP. Prior experience also includes her role as a principal at boutique financial consulting and valuation firms, during her 10 years at a regional accounting firm, and while at Key Bank in the Valuation Services group. She holds the AICPA specialty designation of Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) and is an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) with the American Society of Appraisers. She has served as a member of the AICPA FVS Executive Committee, the AICPA Business Valuation Committee, and the AICPA ABV Credential Committee. She served on the task force to author the AICPA practice aid Business Valuations for Estate and Gift Tax Purposes. She is also a contributing editor of the AICPA FVS Digest. Ms. Aumiller served for five years as a director of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association Foundation.

Don Barbo, CPA/ABV, is a managing director with VMG Health and leads the firm's Litigation & Disputes valuation practice. For over 24 years he has performed valuations exclusively for the healthcare industry, involving mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, partnership transactions, leasing arrangements, financial reporting matters, divorces, diminution of value, and commercial damages. His extensive healthcare valuation engagements have included hospitals (acute care, long-term care, critical access, behavioral health, and surgical), physician practices (a variety of primary care and hospital-based), ambulatory surgery centers, diagnostic imaging centers, cardiac catheter labs, pathology and clinical labs, cancer treatment centers, and dialysis centers. Mr. Barbo has also performed engagements for various contracts between hospitals and physicians, including medical director agreements, on-call agreements, lithotripsy service agreements, professional services agreements, and management services agreements. Mr. Barbo also serves as an expert witness in litigation matters for his clients and has extensive testifying experience in various state and federal courts and involving a wide range of issues, including whistleblower actions, breaches of contract, shareholder disputes, bankruptcy and distressed businesses, and marital divorces. Prior to his valuation career, he served as the chief financial officer for a physician practice management company and as the controller/financial officer for various emerging companies. He began his professional career as an auditor with a Big 4 national accounting firm. Mr. Barbo is a member of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). He has served on the Technical Advisory Board of the AICPA's FVS Consulting Digest and as a former expert panelist for the Financial Valuation and Litigation Expert journal. He holds a BBA in accounting from Texas Tech University, and an MBA from the Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University.

Neil J. Beaton, CPA/ABV/CFF, CFA, ASA, is a managing director with Alvarez & Marsal Valuation Services, LLC. Mr. Beaton specializes in the valuation of public and privately held businesses and intangible assets for purposes of litigation support (shareholder disputes, lost profits claims, marriage dissolutions, and others), acquisitions, sales, buy-sell agreements, ESOPs, incentive stock options, and estate planning and taxation. He also performs economic analysis for personal injury claims, wrongful termination, and wrongful death actions. Mr. Beaton is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), and Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA). Additionally, he is Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) and Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF). Mr. Beaton is a frequent lecturer at universities, is an instructor for various business valuation courses, and speaks nationally on business valuation with a special emphasis on early-stage and high-technology companies. Mr. Beaton has written two books on early-stage company valuation, has contributed to a number of other books on valuation and damages issues, and has written numerous articles on these topics. He is a former co-chair of the AICPA's Valuation of Private Equity Securities Task Force, a former member of the AICPA's ABV Exam Committee, and has served on the AICPA's Mergers & Acquisitions Disputes Task Force. He is currently a member of the Business Valuation Update Editorial Advisory Board, a former expert panelist for the Editorial Board of the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts' Value Examiner, and a former expert panelist for the Financial Valuation and Litigation Expert journal. Mr. Beaton earned a BA in economics from Stanford University and a master's degree in finance from National University.

Marc D. Bello, CPA/ABV, CVA, MAFF, CFF, MST, is a partner at Edelstein & Company, located in Boston, Massachusetts, leading the Business Valuation and Forensic Accounting team. Mr. Bello is a nationally recognized expert in business valuation and forensic accounting, and has appeared as an expert witness in the United States Tax Court as well as Massachusetts Superior Probate Courts. Mr. Bello's expertise includes serving as an expert witness in the areas of business valuation, forensic accounting, lost profits, business interruption, economic damages, and taxation. He is highly valued because of his ability to present and explain in a clear and compelling manner complex facts often involved in high-stakes disputes. Mr. Bello has authored numerous articles related to divorce, forensic accounting, and family business operations and is a frequent lecturer on issues of business valuation and forensic accounting at conferences around the country. As a regular instructor for the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA), he is part of the Business Valuation Training Center team and Best Practices in Business Valuation team and was one of the lead instructors for the Current Updates in Valuation from 2007 to 2017. Mr. Bello is a past chair of NACVA's Executive Advisory Board, Valuation Credentialing Board, Litigation Forensics Board, and Education Quality Assurance Board. He currently serves on the Family Law Advisory Committee for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education.

Erica Bramer, CFA, CVA, CIRA, serves as Managing Partner of BVA Group, a nationally recognized litigation, valuation, and financial advisory firm celebrating its 50th anniversary. Ms. Bramer is deeply experienced in finance and valuation, having supported a wide variety of clients in disputes/litigation, restructuring, and management consulting assignments. She has testified dozens of times as an expert witness on matters of finance, valuation, damages, and solvency in venues across the United States and internationally. Ms. Bramer has provided expert opinions and other litigation consulting in the context of claims such as breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of trade secrets, patent and copyright infringement, trademark and/or trade dress infringement, tortious interference, fraud, wrongful death/termination, antitrust, preferences and fraudulent conveyance, and securities law violations. She has a particular interest in international disputes and has been engaged on several high-profile international matters. Ms. Bramer has also provided valuation expertise for purposes of buy-sell agreements, solvency opinions, lending decisions, and tax support and has participated in various cash-tracing and financial forensic investigations, including money-laundering investigations in Colombia. Ms. Bramer has been actively involved in the restructuring of various entities, both within the chapter 11 process as well as out-of-court workouts, and has worked as a management consultant to advise companies on many aspects of strategy and operations. She also has years of experience working in Latin America, Europe, and Asia as a financial restructuring advisor and/or management consultant, advising on...