Mason, Griffin, & Pierson, P.C. Timely Information

Putting a value on something, whether it's a house for sale or an asphalt contract, is as much of an art as a business. You can crunch the numbers all you want, but there will still be some intangibles that have to be guessed, and the final sum almost certainly will displease one of the parties involved, either the seller or the buyer.

And when the object in question is worthy many millions of dollars, the tension is compounded.

Valuation experts at Management Planning Inc. (MPI) on Poor Farm Road have been doing this for more than 60 years (www.mpival.com). MPI Securities Inc. is a broker-dealer that provides business and securities valuation expertise to closely held and publicly held businesses including litigation support and expert testimony.

But recently Management Planning ran afoul of a buyer that very much disagreed with the firm's conclusions, and was taken to court. Don Veix of Mason Griffin Pearson, located in the same building on Poor Farm Road, successfully defended MPI against an attorney team that included the former U.S. Solicitor General under President Clinton and the firm that Clinton used during the Monica Lewinski scandal.

A branch of the family that had founded the Salt Lake Tribune had lost financial control of the paper and was trying to buy it back, but its owners meanwhile had sold it to someone else. Each side hired an appraiser, and the third appraiser, MPI, was to come up with the final sum. That sum was rejected by the family, who filed the lawsuit in January, saying MPI's value was too much by more than $100 million. Though the New Jersey Superior Court rejected the suit, the family's attempt to buy the paper continues.