戦後合併運動と事業評価士の生成

Abstract

This paper analyzes the professionalization of the business appraisal service in the United States. As the number of mergers and acquisitions increased in the United States, the need for business valuation increased. The business appraisal service is used to, for example, mitigate conflict in selling price between the acquirer and the acquiree.The business appraisal service gradually grew after the 1950s and developed extensively in the 1980s. The growth of private company acquisitions and divestitures in the 1980s promoted its development. The main actors who provided business appraisal services were asset appraisers and accountants. They established the status as a profession after the Great Depression. Asset appraisers mainly appraised tangible property, especially machines, for insurance or tax purposes. Accountants reported and analyzed corporate financial data. Supplying business appraisal services and appraising expected corporate value, they changed their main technique from “retrospective” or “fact-finding” types to “prospective” or “forecasting.” As the business appraisal industry grew, many problems occurred due to the lack of appraisal skills or fraud. Four professional associations set up new licenses for business appraisers in order to provide appropriate appraisal services. In 1978, Institute of Business Appraisers (IBA) issued a license, the first in the United States, for appraisers specializing in private companies. Recently, confronted with member-seeking competition from other professional associations, such as IBA and other organizations, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants also issued a license for business appraisers in 1997. These associations examine their members' appraisal abilities, impose a code of ethics on their members, and provide training programs for their members with the intention of improving the quality of the business appraisal service.