Mark Walker
OXFORD, Miss. – A professor in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi received an award at the Annual Consultants’ Conference in Dallas, Texas.
Mark Walker, associate professor of finance, was recognized with the Rosemarie O. “RO” Smith Academic Research Award for his presentation, “Relevance, Reliability, and the Company-Specific Risk Premium.”
The four-day event, held June 20-23, was sponsored by the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts and the Institute of Business Appraisers. The conference focused on a variety of topics, including business valuation, litigation consulting, mergers and acquisitions, and exit/succession planning.Walker’s paper examined models that business appraisers often use to estimate the cost of equity for a privately held business.
“During the last few years, business valuation experts have debated the merits of the Butler-Pinkerton Model, a model which uses historical data from publicly traded companies to estimate the cost of equity,” Walker said. “The debate is intriguing because the fundamental question is whether a model that uses empirical data is better than models that rely more heavily on informed judgment.
“My presentation examined the Butler-Pinkerton Model from theoretical, legal and statistical perspectives, and I concluded that the model is likely to be difficult to defend in practice. Therefore, I prefer the Adjusted Capital Asset Pricing (A-CAPM) and Build-Up methods.”
Walker teaches corporate finance and investments classes at UM. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Business Appraiser. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Financial Executive Research Foundation, which is the research affiliate of Financial Executives International. He also serves on the editorial board of “Business Appraisal Practice.”
For more information about the School of Business Administration, visit http://www.olemissbusiness.com/.