With a new service targeting advisors, BizEquity says it wants to put the value back in valuations.

The Philadelphia-based business valuation specialist announced on Monday the launch of an online service that offers free valuations for financial advisors.

“We’re offering an actual valuation [report] to advisors for free. This isn’t just an estimated value based on a couple of questions,” says Mike Carter, BizEquity CEO. “In the past, valuation has been time consuming and expensive. We’re putting it online, democratizing it and bringing the Amazon effect to business valuation.”

The report is the only free, detailed valuation available to advisors, says Carter.

The offer applies to advisor businesses of all sizes, including sole practitioners, according to BizEquity.

The new service is a partnership between BizEquity and Eatontown, N.J.-based Discovery Data, a provider of financial advisor data.

In addition to a real-time valuation, advisors will also be able to create a 29-page valuation report with four different valuation parameters: liquidation, assets, equity and enterprise. The new service is offered via BizEquity’s website.

The valuations help advisors fulfill a proposed rule to require advisors to create succession and continuity plans, says Carter. While broker-dealers are already required to engage in succession planning, advisors weren’t bound by any such provision until the past few years, when individual states adopted requirements.

“The first step to creating a succession plan is to know what you’re worth,” says Carter. “This is a value-added service to the industry.”

In 2015, the North American Securities Administrators Association issued a model rule mandating succession planning for state regulated advisors, which has led to several states implementing their own regulations. In the summer of 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a rule to require continuity planning for all advisors.

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