Three disciplines, usually applied together
A damages claim rests on a set of books. A marital estate turns on what a business is worth. A trustee’s recovery depends on where the money went. The three services below are separable on paper and rarely separable in practice, which is why the same team handles all of them.
- Business valuation
- Closely held companies and professional practices, valued for litigation, marital estates, estate and gift tax filings, employee stock ownership plans, and transactions.
- Financial forensics and asset tracing
- Tracing funds through business and personal accounts, reconstructing incomplete records, and investigating suspected misappropriation.
- Economic damages
- Lost profits, but-for analyses, loss of business value, and lost earnings, along with critiques of an opposing expert’s model.
Each of these is also performed in reverse, on an opinion the other side has already served. Testing a report is a different engagement from writing one, and often a better use of the budget: the opposing expert has already committed to a number and a method, which narrows the question to whether the reasoning behind them holds.
Valuation work that never sees a courtroom
Most of the same analysis is needed well before anyone is in dispute, and often to prevent one. We prepare valuations for estate and gift tax filings, Section 409A common stock valuations, charitable contribution appraisals, employee stock ownership plans, buy-sell agreement pricing and funding, key-man insurance, and management planning. We also advise on the buy and sell sides of middle-market transactions, including purchase price allocations, deal structure, and earn-out mechanics.
Work performed for a transaction or a tax filing is scoped differently from work performed for litigation. We will tell you which one you are buying before we start.
Who you are actually retaining
TWG Advisors is a small firm by design. Every engagement is directed by a principal, who directs the analysis and signs the report rather than delegating it down and reviewing it on the way back up. David Witherspoon, MBA, CVA, is the founder and Managing Member and works from Towson. David W. Carr, CPA, CMA, CFE, ABV, CFF, is a Principal and works from Salisbury. Michael A. Saelens Jr., CFE, is a Senior Consultant.
Between them the principals have valued companies across a wide range of industries, from poultry distribution and machine shops to software-as-a-service and patent holding companies, and have testified in state and federal courts in Maryland and elsewhere.