This week’s Venture Spotlight is Arik Van Zandt, ASA – Senior Manager in Grant Thornton LLP’s Economic Advisory Services Group.

Arik grew up in Bellevue before he strayed to Palo Alto where he graduated from Stanford University.  While at Stanford Arik played infield for the baseball team that VanZandt06.JPGwent to the College World Series all four years.  Arik found his way back to the Northwest where he currently lives on the eastside with his wife and two kids.  At Grant Thornton, Arik specializes in the valuation of private companies operating in a variety of industries for purposes of litigation support, acquisitions, sales, estate planning, and taxation.  Arik also provides expert witness testimony through the calculation of economic damages for business damage claims, personal injury, wrongful death, and labor related disputes.  Prior to re-joining Grant Thornton, Arik was the CFO of a securities broker-dealer where he was responsible for all accounting, finance, legal, and compliance for the firm during a time of rapid growth.

What trends are you seeing in private company valuation?

Valuations are healthier overall, and in some sectors – social media and gaming in particular – valuations have skyrocketed.  There has been a lot of money sitting on the sidelines for the past couple of years, and it has really rushed back to the marketplace in an almost gold-rush fashion for some companies.  The Great Recession created a virtual double whammy on company valuations.  Not only did a company’s financial statistics suffer from the decline in the economy (i.e., revenue, EBITDA, net income, etc.), but valuation multiples went down as well.  EBITDA multiples, for instance, were more than a third lower in 2008-2009 than they were in the four years prior to that.  With company financials improving and positive emotion among the investing community, we are primed to see significant increases in valuations.Continue Reading The Venture Spotlight: Arik Van Zandt, Business Valuation Expert