News

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

Dutch Make Claim on MG

Written by By Christopher Hope

Daily Telegraph (UK), Sec. City, p 003Valuation Consulting Co Appointed as Brand Valuation Experts to assist the MG Administrator. A Chinese car maker's attempt to revive the MG brand could be frustrated amid claims that it does not own the rights to famous car marque on most of mainland Europe.Last July, Nanjing Automotive paid £53m for a series of brands, including MG, and the equipment to make the cars at its Longbridge car plant.However, the rights to sell the cars in 15 countries, including Belgium, Holland, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Russia, are claimed by a separate entity, MG…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

Commercial Agencies

Written by Super User

The Court of Appeal has handed down an important decision in Lonsdale v Howard & Hallam on the quantification of claims for compensation under The Commercial Agents Regulations 1993. The Regulations derive from an EC directive and provide that compensation is payable to Commercial Agents on termination of their agency with their Principals. The Regulations provide no real guidance as to how this compensation is to be calculated. We have worked in this sector for some years and from experience the Courts have struggled with calculating the compensation since the Regulations came into force.In this latest case, the Court of…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

Valuation Consulting Co Principals were pleased to be able to help Barclays settle its brand tagline dispute.

Written by Super User

As reported in the financial press: “Barclays and East Midlands accountancy firm Cooper Parry have ended their spat over the bank's advertising strapline,'“Now there's a thought'. The two have reached an out-of-court settlement. When news of Barclays' multimillion-pound-campaign broke last month, Cooper Parry claimed it had been using the slogan for five years and sought a High Court injunction. Its attempt to halt the campaign was unsuccessful, but the court agreed these was a case to answer and a hearing was set for early December.Following the settlement, Barclays can continue to use the strapline in its ads created by Bartle Bogle…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

Tax Effective Exploitation of Intangibles

Written by Super User

The intangible fixed assets regime found in Finance Act 2002, Sch. 29 deals with the corporation tax treatment of assets such as patents, trade marks, design rights and goodwill. The purpose of s. 41 was to make changes in a number of areas where the HM Revenue & Customs felt that amendment was needed in order to prevent unintended tax relief being given.Generally, relief is available for intangible fixed assets created on or after 1 April 2002 or for intangible fixed assets created before 1 April 2002 are transferred between unrelated parties in which case relief is given on the…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

Valuation for Self Assessed Tax Returns

Written by Super User

The Revenue can open an enquiry into a return to check that the self assessment returns the right amount of tax. If it is incorrect the self assessment can be corrected.The Court of Appeal judgment in the recent Valtema case was concerned with how much information the taxpayer needs to provide to remove the possibility of the Inspector making a further assessment, known as a discovery assessment. The Revenue has provided guidance on what taxpayers can do to reduce or remove the risk of a discovery assessment in some fairly common circumstances.Some entries on tax returns depend on a valuation.Most…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

New Ethical Standards with regard to Valuation Services

Written by Super User

The Auditing Practices Board has issued new Ethical Standards to be effective for audits for periods beginning on or after 15 December 2004. We are happy with most aspects.ES 5 concerns non-audit services provided to audit clients. It states that the audit firm should not undertake an engagement to provide a valuation to an audit client where the valuation would both: involve a significant degree of subjective judgment have a material effect on the financial statements The main threats to the auditors’ objectivity and independence arising from the provision of valuation services are the self-review threat and the management…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

International Financial Reporting Standards

Written by Super User

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) compel listed companies to put a value on intangibles bought by a part of a business or company acquisition since 31 March 2004.

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

IFRS3 and Purchase Price Allocation

Written by Super User

Recent analysis for US markets shows that intangibles and goodwill constitute 74% of the average purchase price of acquired companies in 2003 with intangibles representing 22% and residual goodwill 52%. That is encouraging. IFRS3 puts intangibles on the map as a core management issue by imposing mandatory reporting requirements on all companies reporting under IFRS.We are moving more to fair value and the changes concerning accounting for business combinations are significant for intangibles. Standard 3 represents the shift to transparency. All EU companies on listed Exchanges have been required to report under IFRS from 2005.Generally Standard 3 requires that intangibles are recognised…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

In process R&D, Valuation and Accounting. FAS141 and 142 make the purchase method of accounting mandatory in acquisition reporting.

Written by Super User

Valuation of ‘In Process R&D' (“IPR&D”) is critical in purchase price allocation and goodwill impairment testing.FAS2 is the standard for reporting R&D.Consistently the SEC has expressed concern about IPR&D write-offs. It has identified what are considered flaws in the way fair value is applied to estimate IPR&D. For example projects are not separated from other acquired assets, stages of development are not recognised sufficiently and the investment value concept, rather than fair value, is applied.Amongst other things helpfully the SEC has stated that IPR&D is nothing to do with residual goodwill and you should undertake a proper IP acquisition audit.…

Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00

Valuation Consulting Co's valuations in the public domain currently.

Written by Super User

"Return to Sender: Google forced by UK minnow to drop ‘gmail' brandGoogle, the giant internet search engine, has been forced to drop its “Gmail” brand for new users in the UK by a minnow company that claims first rights to the name.The US internet group said that after a year-long legal battle with Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) new UK users of its free e-mail service would receive an address ending in ‘googlemail.com” instead of “gmail.com”.The change is an embarrassment for Google, which has a market value of $85billion (£48billion). AIM-listed IIIR is worth only £3.3million.Pronet, a subsidiary of IIIR,…

Is IP the solution to the pension deficit crisis?

With the pension deficit black hole reaching crisis point, companies are looking at creative ways to fill the gaps. Maura O’Malley explores the options with Valuation Consulting Co’s Kelvin King and Aon Hewitt’s David Bush. Defined pensions schemes now appear to belong to another era: one p..

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