The new EXPERTsuisse “Business Valuation” bulletin

Background, innovations, highlights

Introduction

Unlike an audit, a business valuation is not a recurring and plannable mandate. Nevertheless, the necessary expertise must be up to date and the tools must be available.

EXPERTsuisse has a long tradition of specialist work in this area. The first technical communication on the subject of business valuations dates back to 1994 and was revised in 2008. There, the focus was still on the process of a valuation and reporting, not on the calculation of value in the narrower sense. The “Fachmitteilung Unternehmensbewertung von kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU)” (Business Valuation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises), which was adopted in 2018, was intended to provide guidance for SMEs in particular.

This still young pronouncement was positively received in interested circles – i.e. by companies, consultants, auditors, but also tax administration and jurisdiction. The question soon arose as to whether and to what extent the principles described there for the valuation of SMEs could also be applied in other cases. This is also because – unlike in Germany or Austria – there is no binding standard for the profession in Switzerland to which reference can be made for valuations of larger or listed companies.

The authors of this article are members of a working group of EXPERTsuisse, which is responsible for the professional work on the topic of company valuations. From this perspective, they provide an overview of the changes as well as their background and shed light on essential contents and aspects.

Read here an excerpt from the Yearbook Finance and Accounting 2023 (in German). You can purchase the full article at the following link.