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Newest Issue
Autumn - Winter 2025 - Water
By Hafiz Imtiaz Ahmad
By Andrew Strickland
In Conversation with Ascanio Salvidio: Exploring the Latest Trends in the Italian Business Valuation
By Magdalena Zawadzka
By Lennart Poulsen
Published by Business Valuation Institute UK
Depths • Autumn - Winter 2025 • Water
Graham Antrobus traces Spotify’s path from its origins in Sweden to its position as a global audio force, using Damodaran’s framework of narrative and numbers to guide the reader. He examines how rapid user growth collides with persistent margin pressures, and how the company’s move into podcasts and wider audio signals an ambition to expand its identity beyond music.
Flow • Autumn - Winter 2025 2025 • Water
Greg Endicott explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping the valuation profession, beginning with the startling speed at which machines can now perform tasks once reserved for skilled analysts. He contrasts AI’s power in research and process efficiency with its weaknesses in judgment, nuance, and human dynamics, showing that the real challenge lies not in replacement but in adaptation.
Droplets • Autumn - Winter 2025 • Water
John Sears reflects on the turning of seasons, drawing the reader from the heat of summer into the sensual embrace of autumn with its sharper air, richer foods, and deeper wines. He guides us through Rhône blends of Grenache and Syrah, then north to Italy’s Nebbiolo and Barbera, and finally back to the Rhône’s textured whites—each bottle paired with the bounty of autumnal cuisine.
By Graham Antrobus
By Greg Endicott
By John Sears
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Droplets • Autumn - Winter 2025 • Water
Lennart Poulsen tells a story of how an unexpected moment of weakness opened the door to invention. What began as frustration turned into curiosity, sketches, and eventually a vision for PramBoost—a quiet assist that restores ease and dignity to everyday movement. His piece is less about mechanics and more about human connection: how design, when thoughtful and simple, can transform small struggles into renewed presence, and create space for parents and carers to walk further, stay longer, and share more.
By Lennart Poulsen
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Tides• Autumn - Winter 2025 • Water
Hafiz Imtiaz Ahmad and Ascanio Salvidio chart the work of BVIUK’s AI Policy Council, a group formed to bring clarity and structure to how artificial intelligence should be used in valuation. Their account moves through the Council’s initiatives—building repositories, drafting guidelines, testing tools, and addressing ethics—always with the aim of balancing innovation with professional judgment. What emerges is not a technical manual, but a narrative of practitioners shaping a living framework: one that acknowledges both the promise and the risks of AI, and seeks to anchor its use in transparency, responsibility, and the integrity of valuation practice.
By Hafiz Imtiaz Ahmad and Ascanio Salvidio
Depths • Autumn - Winter 2025 • Water
Danny F. Hill opens the world of sports valuation with the drama of billion-dollar transactions, from the Boston Celtics to Manchester United, and shows how beneath the headline numbers lies a web of complexity. He traces how intangibles such as player contracts, cultural identity, and global fandom collide with tangible anchors like stadiums, and how the perpetual cycle of roster, results, and revenue defines financial futures. His analysis reveals sport as an asset class unlike any other—volatile, status-driven, and structurally unique—where valuation demands not formula but context, and where comparability only holds within the precise boundaries of league and game.
By Danny F. Hill
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Currents: Notes From the Editors
Currents • Autumn - Winter 2025 • Water
AI enhances speed, consistency, and analytical power in business valuation, but it does not replace human expertise. Professional judgment, ethical responsibility, and contextual understanding remain essential. The future of valuation lies in harmonising technological tools with the valuer’s discernment.
By Hafiz Imtiaz Ahmad
Currents • Autumn-Winter 2025 • Water
Normalising EBITDA is essential when valuing SMEs to reflect true operational profitability. It involves adjusting for owner-specific decisions, discretionary spending, related-party transactions, and non-recurring items to align the company’s earnings with market-based expectations. A well-normalised EBITDA enables more accurate and credible valuations by showing what a third-party manager might realistically achieve.
Currents • Autumn-Winter 2025 • Water
Specific company risk is a major factor shaping SME valuation in Australia, with recent data revealing that owner dependence is the top concern—only 5% of owners believe their businesses could function well without them. Bstar’s large-scale survey of over 16,000 SMEs offers granular, data-backed insights into key risks and drivers, enabling valuers to support their discount rate assumptions more precisely. This approach opens up strategic opportunities for valuation professionals to go beyond reporting and actively contribute to business value growth.
Currents • Autumn-Winter 2025 • Water
Family business transitions are rarely disrupted by financial issues alone—it's emotional conflicts, cultural dynamics, and governance gaps that often cause fractures. Valuation, when approached with both technical rigor and human sensitivity, becomes a tool for transparency, fairness, and continuity. In these moments, valuers must act not only as professionals but as trusted facilitators of legacy.
By Ben Macnaghten
By David Young
By Omar Zaman
Drift • Autumn -Winter 2025 • Water
Valuers are often asked to calculate the fair value of share options, sometimes with limited background or precedent. The key is to clarify the valuation purpose early, understand the accounting framework, and recognise that not all scenarios require complex modelling.
By Shan Kennedy
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