Frequently Asked Questions
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Brown Smith Wallace Financial Advisory Services (FAS) offers a compelling option for clients seeking quality valuation, dispute advisory, and corporate finance services. Find out if our firm is right for you by reviewing our responses to a compilation of questions frequently asked by prospective clients. Some of the FAQ presented are not applicable to all engagements opportunities.
Does Brown Smith Wallace provide comparable levels of service and work product quality as the largest financial advisory firms?
Yes. While larger firms typically want their clients and prospects to focus on the “name on the letterhead,” Brown Smith Wallace focuses on the experience, expertise, and credentials of its senior professionals who actually will be providing the services. Brown Smith Wallace maintains relatively little hierarchy, which means that clients will receive attention from the most experienced personnel best suited to fulfill the client’s needs. We believe this is an important differentiator relative to many of our competitors. Brown Smith Wallace is committed to providing the best value in our profession, which means that we have an objective to provide a “Big 4” quality work product to our clients but with superior service and at a lower cost.
Can Brown Smith Wallace work on engagements involving foreign operations and assets?
Yes. Our senior FAS personnel have significant experience providing services to multinational corporations and valuing businesses and assets located in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East. Based upon our FAS professionals’ experiences working at international accounting firms, valuations of foreign operations and assets for U.S.-based clients are typically provided by the U.S.-based engagement team. In fact, foreign-based personnel are often not leveraged in such engagements. However, in circumstances where we need to leverage foreign-based personnel, Brown Smith Wallace has such resources available through our affiliation with Moore Stephens International, which provides a global association of over 20,000 professionals in 97 countries.
Can Brown Smith Wallace work on engagements impacted by international tax matters?
Yes. Our senior personnel have significant experience providing consulting services to multinational corporations with operations and assets located in locations in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East. For assistance with international tax rules, we leverage the considerable knowledge of such experienced Brown Smith Wallace tax personnel as Doug Eckert, a former vice president of tax for a large publicly traded multinational corporation. In addition, our clients have their own tax advisors with whom we consult to ensure that our analysis and deliverables meet the reporting requirements in applicable U.S. and foreign tax jurisdictions.
A company uses other service providers for M&A advisory, due diligence, accounting, and tax services. Will it still be efficient to utilize Brown Smith Wallace for valuation services instead of using the valuation personnel from one of these service providers?
Yes. We regularly work with clients who utilize other firms for their professional service needs. Due to the nature of valuation services, we are experts in what we do just as the other service providers may be experts in auditing, tax, law, etc. It is not unusual for professionals from different firms to work together to provide the best and most cost-effective solution to meet their client’s needs. In our opinion, the perceived synergies of using a “one firm” solution are overstated and may result in the client paying higher fees than necessary.
Will valuation, dispute advisory, and corporate finance services performed by Brown Smith Wallace be credible?
Yes. Our senior personnel are highly experienced professionals who hold many of the most prestigious credentials in the industry, including Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA), Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV), Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), among others. Our senior personnel have experience working at large multinational corporations and some of the largest financial advisory firms in the U.S., including Deloitte and Grant Thornton. Our senior personnel serve on national committees and task forces with other senior personnel from the “Big 4”, multinational corporations, and international investment banking firms. Finally, our credibility is demonstrated by our many clients who have used our services on numerous occasions. For example, our senior personnel have performed hundreds of valuation engagements for financial reporting purposes and our opinions have always been accepted as audit evidence by our client’s independent auditors.
Can Brown Smith Wallace also help its clients with real estate and machinery & equipment appraisals?
Yes. We partner with numerous professional appraisal firms who specialize in real estate and machinery and equipment valuation. In our opinion, this approach offers advantages to our clients. Since Brown Smith Wallace is a significant source of business for our third-party partners, we are assured to receive high levels of service and competitive pricing. Our approach leads to two benefits for our clients: higher levels of service and lower costs. In addition, since Brown Smith Wallace serves as the overall project manager, we remain accountable for the overall engagement success and clients are assured of one point of contact. Administratively, one engagement letter is issued to the client by Brown Smith Wallace and invoices are issued directly by Brown Smith Wallace.
Do you have access to similar research databases as other leading valuation, dispute advisory, and corporate finance consulting firms?
Yes. We invest significant sums of money annually in order to access industry-leading research databases, such as Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ, which are relied upon by other leading financial advisory firms. Such databases often provide important data benchmarks that are used in performing stock market, industry, public and private company, and cost of capital research, among other tasks. For access to a complete listing of databases and research resources used by Brown Smith Wallace, please call or email us to request a temporary Client ID and Password to access the Client Login section of our Website.
Can you give an indication what is necessary for Brown Smith Wallace to deliver a proposal for its financial advisory services?
Yes. The extent and time related to each proposal process varies depending upon the nature and complexity of the engagement. We will first check for any potential conflicts, such as a lack of independence from the potential client, which may prevent us from providing the requested services. Assuming there are no conflicts, then we would typically schedule a phone interview to understand the required services, desired timing for completion, and any other information deemed necessary. Once a prospective client provides sufficient information to permit an assessment of the time necessary to complete the engagement, a proposal often can be delivered within 24 to 48 hours.
Is there a typical engagement timeline for financial advisory services?
No. Engagement timelines can vary significantly. For example, there are certain valuation engagements that may only require three weeks from the receipt of requested information to complete. However, at the other extreme, certain dispute advisory engagements may extend over multiple years. We work with our clients at the beginning of an engagement to identify a timeline that both meets their timing needs as well as allows us to complete our work in a manner that complies with applicable professional standards.
Can I access additional information, regarding your services, such as a representative client listing and sample deliverables?
Yes. In order to gain access to proprietary information such as a representative list of clients and sample deliverables including information requests and reports, please call or email us to request a temporary Client ID and Password for access to such content through our Website. Note: Certain clients may not be disclosed by Brown Smith Wallace due to non-disclosure agreements. Sample deliverables have been modified to remove identifying client information.
