When people hear “business valuation,” they often picture a fairly straightforward assignment: determine what a company is worth.
Sometimes, that is exactly what we are asked to do.
But when we look back at the work our clients brought to us in 2026, the more interesting story is why they needed to know.
The valuation was often only one part of a much bigger question:
Can we afford to buy out a shareholder?
How should we structure a transition to the next generation?
What happens if we sell part of the company?
Is an ESOP financially viable?
How do we support the value reported on an estate tax return?
Can we determine business value without creating another fight in a divorce?
What was the economic damage caused by a business dispute?
Those questions took us into very different businesses and circumstances throughout the year. While every engagement was unique, several themes emerged.
One of the broadest areas of our work in 2026 involved internal planning.
That label covers a lot of ground because business owners rarely wake up simply wanting a valuation. There is usually a decision behind it.
This year, those decisions included sales to employees, shareholder transitions, family business transitions, employee stock purchases, shareholder buyouts, acquisitions, mergers, sales of portions of companies, and possible third-party sales.
In many cases, the real question was not simply what the company was worth, but what the business could realistically support.
For example:
We also continued working with companies that obtain valuations regularly under shareholder agreements, compensation arrangements, or ongoing planning programs. Those recurring assignments can provide useful perspective on how value — and the factors driving it — change over time.
But whether a valuation is performed once or annually, arriving at a conclusion requires understanding the business behind the numbers. Earnings trends, margins, customer concentration, working capital, capital expenditures, debt, management structure, and other operational and financial factors all help explain current value and the risks and opportunities that may influence it going forward.
Knowing what the business is worth is important.
Understanding why it is worth what it is — and what could change that value — is often much more useful.
Ownership transition showed up in many forms throughout our 2026 engagements.
Some owners were considering selling to employees. Others were working through shareholder buyouts, family business transactions, or potential outside sales.
A transaction that looks reasonable based on purchase price alone can look very different once debt service, taxes, working capital needs, capital expenditures, and future shareholder payments are considered.
For that reason, some assignments moved beyond valuation into financial modeling.
Instead of stopping at:
“What is the company worth?”
the analysis became:
“If we do this, what happens next?”
That is often the more important question.
Estate and gift tax work remained another significant part of our practice in 2026.
Some assignments involved valuations for estate tax reporting following an owner's death. Others involved proactive estate planning during an owner's lifetime.
For estate tax reporting, the valuation must establish fair market value as of the required valuation date and support the assumptions, methodologies, and discounts used.
Planning assignments often happen much earlier. Owners and their advisors may be evaluating gifts, trusts, or other wealth-transfer strategies and need to understand the value of the ownership interests being transferred.
In both situations, valuation becomes one piece of a broader advisory process involving attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, and family members.
Our ESOP work in 2026 reflected two different stages of employee ownership.
For established ESOP companies, we continued performing annual independent valuations used by ESOP trustees in administering the plan.
But a much larger part of our ESOP work involved companies still deciding whether an ESOP was the right path.
Our work at that stage centers on the feasibility study, with a heavy focus on financial modeling.
The primary question is straightforward:
“Is an ESOP financially viable for this company?”
That analysis considers more than what selling shareholders might receive. The company must also be able to support the transaction while continuing to fund operations, invest in the business, and maintain appropriate financial flexibility.
If the owners decide an ESOP is the right path, we then help prepare them for the next stage of the process, including organizing the financial analysis and helping them understand what to expect when they meet with the independent ESOP trustee.
Divorce-related valuation work is rarely happening at an easy moment in anyone's life.
When a privately held business is involved, determining its value — and sometimes the income available to its owner — can become one more difficult issue for a separating couple and their attorneys to navigate.
One approach we have found particularly effective is a joint engagement, where both parties retain one independent financial expert rather than each hiring their own.
The analysis is no less rigorous. But instead of beginning with two experts, two analyses and potentially two competing conclusions, the parties begin with one independent analysis and a common set of financial information.
When the circumstances are appropriate, that can help narrow the issues, reduce professional fees and avoid adding unnecessary financial conflict to an already difficult process.
Some engagements begin because something has gone wrong.
Our litigation work in 2026 included business disputes, shareholder matters and economic damages.
These assignments often require reconstructing what would have happened but for a particular event.
That may involve analyzing historical results, customer activity, specific projects, contribution margins, lost opportunities, or other financial records to isolate the economic impact of the dispute.
The work is often less about producing one calculation than about building a financial story that can be supported by the evidence.
That same idea carries into forensic accounting investigations.
In those assignments, the first question is often not about value at all.
It is about understanding the money.
Transactions may need to be traced. Financial activity may need to be reconstructed. Records from multiple sources may need to be reconciled before anyone can determine what actually occurred.
Only after those pieces are assembled does the larger picture begin to emerge.
When we step back and look at our 2026 projects collectively, what stands out is not simply the number of valuations we completed.
It is the range of decisions those valuations and financial analyses helped support.
Some clients were planning years into the future. Some were navigating a transaction happening right now. Some needed to satisfy a tax or regulatory requirement. Some were working through a difficult personal or business dispute. And some were trying to understand events that had already occurred.
The common thread was the need for independent financial analysis to make a complicated situation more understandable.
Because behind almost every number is a much bigger question.
And understanding that question is usually where the real work begins.