Member Details

Bryant D. Petersen MBA ASA CFE

Bryant D. Petersen is the Director of Business Valuation & Litigation Support at Bober Markey Fedorovich, a full service certified public accounting firm.  Mr. Petersen is part of the BMF’s Business Valuation Litigation Support team that offers specialized services in the areas of forensic accounting, economic damage analysis, and business valuation.  Mr. Petersen has primarily been engaged by attorneys and law firms to assist them and their clients with financial and accounting-oriented issues, ranging from complex damage analyses to business valuation. 

His engagements include the performance of business appraisals or valuations, investigative accounting assignments, and economic loss quantification cases. Mr. Petersen has also been engaged to provide professional expertise to individuals, businesses, insurance companies, financial institutions, and not-for-profit organizations. 

The following is a summary of Mr. Petersen’s business valuation, investigative accounting, economic loss calculation, personal injury, and general litigation experience.

Business valuation

Mr. Petersen has experience in performing business appraisals in both cooperative and contentious environments.  He has calculated the value of closely held companies in a wide variety of industries for many different purposes, including for buy-sell agreements, ESOP plans, divorce settlements, stockholder disputes, bankruptcy adversarial proceedings, governmental regulatory agencies, gift and estate tax plans, and other business planning and litigation situations.  He performs complex valuation assignments that involve issues such as distinguishing between enterprise and personal goodwill, allocation of goodwill value, and valuing horizontal and vertically integrated entities.  The following is a brief summary of some of the varied assignments he has participated in:

•  Valued numerous family limited partnerships and holding companies for gift and estate tax planning.

• Valued car dealerships, including both new and used car dealerships.
• Valued businesses engaged in providing sub-prime financing and other non-traditional financing options for car dealerships.
• Valued businesses engaged in providing financing options for retail furniture stores.
• Valued business entities that own retail furniture stores.
• Valued a full service equipment sales and rental company, primarily renting and selling heavy construction and mining equipment such as compactors, excavators, cranes, wheel loaders, and lighter construction equipment such as lasers, compaction wheels, trench boxes, and cables.
• Valued a healthcare staffing agency that specializes in nurse staffing, contract nurse, temporary nurse, and traveling nurse services.
• Valued a medical billing agency.
• Valued business entities that own retail grocery stores.
• Valued a business, including subsidiary and affiliated entities that operate in the oil and gas industry primarily involved the acquisition, retrofitting, operation, and selling of oil and gas projects.
• Valued a business that provides oilfield services to operators of gas and oil wells.
• Valued a vertically integrated grouping of three New York family-owned businesses that were involved in catching and brokering seafood, both domestically, in the United States, as well as internationally in countries such as the UK, Russia and China.
• Valued many different types of medical practices, including those of anesthesiologists, chiropractors, neurosurgeons, ophthalmologists, orthopedic surgeons, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, transplant surgeons, veterinarians, and podiatrists.
• Valued many different holding entities, including real estate holding companies, business asset holding companies, family limited partnerships, investment holding companies, and so on.
• Valued many different businesses engaged in services related to the construction, including electrical contractors; engineering services businesses; a specialty transportation engineering and planning firm; telecom construction services; drywall and plaster services; landscaping; carpeting and flooring; and design services.
• Valued law practices and firms, ranging from sole practitioner, locally focused entities to multi-practitioner, national practice entities.
• Valued a commercial wholesale bakery that specializes in bagels, tortillas, and pita bread.
• Valued a business the operated as a distributor of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and also provided sales, marketing, and delivery services to the retail trade.
• Valued a group of facilities that run licensed treatment programs for adolescents with behavioral, emotional, and substance abuse issues through the use of wilderness settings as a clinically focused intervention to teach students accountability, communication skills and healthy emotional and behavioral habits.
• Valued an educational film company involved in a shareholder dispute.
• Valued various professional services firms, including a CPA practice and an engineering/architectural firm for divorce settlement purposes.
• Provided valuation consulting advice and assisted counsel with due diligence involving an acquisition transaction related to a ski resort.

Forensic accounting

Most all of the engagements Mr. Petersen has been involved in have a component of investigative accounting. This can range from using forensic accounting techniques to analyze and understand the trends in the financial results of a business to investigating fraud allegations.  The following is a list of some of the varied matters in which he has used his forensic accounting expertise to provide assistance:

•  Performed investigative accounting work related to the tracing of funds in offshore ponzi and investment scams.

• Reconstructed accounting records lost or destroyed as a result of theft, flood, fire, and other situations causing lost documents or data.
• Determined total remuneration for individuals that receive income and benefits from a variety of sources.These analyses are typically for marital dissolution matters and regularly involve sole proprietors, entrepreneurs, owners and executives of privately held enterprises, and beneficiaries of trusts.
• Investigated and identified assets of estates and business for use in probate, marital dissolution, and corporate matters.I regularly conduct these analyses for purposes of preparing a schedule detailing a marital estate for use in determining an equitable division.
• Supervised and performed investigative accounting work for criminal fraud trials and claims.
• Supervised and performed investigative accounting services on the assets of marital estates in divorce cases.
• Traced and identified amounts contributed to and for the benefit of businesses as well as the returns and amounts paid to or for the benefit of investors in a business for purposes of establishing the total contributions to a start-up business.
• Performed investigative accounting work related to accountants malpractice litigation.
• Investigated alleged embezzlement of funds from a dental practice.
• Traced and determined the accuracy of all amounts allocated and paid to a member of a medical practice related to claims of underpayments made in post termination litigation.
• Investigated and determined total remuneration of a financial advisor employed at an investment bank.
• Performed investigation to determine assets and income of individual and business for purposes of judgment collection proceedings.
• Traced and detailed uses and separate character of premarital funds and assets, including tracing of incentive stock options through vesting, re-capitalization, public offering, and merger.
• Performed a forensic audit to verify the accuracy of the amounts charged to a club related to an agreement between the club and a professional sports franchise.
• Performed rent audit to verify accuracy of rent amount based on percentage of revenues related to a ground lease agreement.
• Traced and reconstructed payment history relating to the sale of a business and subsequent payment default.
• Performed forensic accounting to reconstruct banking records and trace cash flows to identify the total amounts received from and sent to various individuals and entities for a criminal matter involving a United States Army contract with a munitions dealership based in Miami Beach, Florida, for a contract to supply the Afghanistan Security Forces with various types of military munitions including nearly 500 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition.
• Performed forensic accounting investigation of certain claims relative to an Estate, verified the net assets of the Estate, identified distributions of and expenses of the Estate, and computed the amount of the distributions that need to be made to wind up the Estate.
• Performed forensic accounting investigations for fraudulent conveyance and preference actions.
• Performed forensic accounting investigation of the use of funds invested in a business by a passive investor, including the tracing of siphoned funds through personal accounts of the individuals, and identification of misstatements in financial statements provided by the company as compared to business results demonstrated from the forensic reconstruction.
• Engaged by the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide a forensic accounting investigation of an alleged Ponzi scheme and provided findings in an expert report for use in a court of law for a matter involving claims of fraud in the offer and sale of securities, fraud in connection with the purchase and sale of securities, and offer and sale of unregistered securities.

Evaluation of economic damages and related assessment of economic causation

Mr. Petersen has been involved in the computation of economic losses, or economic damages, in many different types of cases.  He has calculated and evaluated analyses prepared by others for losses due to business interruptions, business destructions, business dissolutions, and a wide variety of business disputes.  He has prepared both consulting reports and comprehensive expert reports, with uses ranging from legal consulting to settlement negotiations to trial testimony.  The following is a list of some of the varied matters in which Mr. Petersen used his expertise to provide assistance:

• Analyzed economic damages in a matter involving claims of breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, lost business opportunity, failure to comply with their contractual obligation, civil conspiracy, intentional interference economic relations, and intentional misrepresentations or fraudulent concealment, related to a business that operated several cellular telephone retail locations in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah.

• Analyzed economic damages in a matter involving claims of breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of nondisclosure and noncompetition agreements, common law unfair competition, and statutory unfair competition, related to a business that provided a video and audio device marketed primarily to the airline industry, specifically for in-flight entertainment.
• Analyzed economic damages in a matter involving breach of contract claims related to a contract between a multispecialty medical clinic and a doctor specializing in hematology and oncology.
• Analyzed economic damages in a matter involving patent infringement claims related to businesses engaged in the manufacture of irrigation and watering products.
• Analyzed economic damages in a matter involving breach of contract claims between a medical practice and a University related to providing team physician services and medical facilities under an intercollegiate athletic services contract.
• Analyzed economic damages in a matter involving claims of misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, intentional interference with prospective economic relations, and civil conspiracy, in a lawsuit between a company and its former employee and the company formed by that employee.
• Analyzed economic damages in a matter arising from a failure to finalize terms for a software sale and subsequent sale of said software to a competitor, involving businesses in the video gambling equipment industry.
• Analyzed the economic loss resulting from personal injury, wrongful death and wrongful termination cases.
• Computed damages on intellectual property cases.
• Computed damages involving losses associated with construction contracts.

Critique and review of other financial experts

Mr. Petersen is regularly involved in assignments specifically for the purpose of reviewing a report of another financial expert.  The work provided in this context ranges from providing consulting advice to counsel to preparing a rebuttal expert report and providing testimony.  The following list outlines some of the matters in which he has been involved:

• Evaluated the damages calculate in a matter in which a developer claimed a governmental entity interfered with its operations and made statements defaming developer all of which caused financial damages including lost sales, delays, and increased costs.

• Assisted counsel with critique of a valuation of a car dealership and related companies.
• Assisted counsel with analysis of stock option and restricted stock valuations.
• Evaluated and prepared rebuttal analyses of damage calculation in a matter involving breach of contract claims relating to a business involved in distributing laser based teeth whitening equipment.
• Prepared expert rebuttal analysis evaluating the economic damage claims in matters involving wrongful termination claims, personal injury claims, and wrongful death claims, including identifying and demonstrating the impact of flawed and speculative uses of generic data sources and vocational analyses.
• Evaluated and prepared rebuttal analyses evaluating economic damage claims in a matter involving real estate development, management, and option agreements, involving real estate with estimated value of over several hundred million dollars.
• Analyzed and prepared rebuttal analyses critiquing economic damage claims in a matter involving a loss of a distributorship and related down-line organization in a multi-level marketing business.
• Evaluated and prepared rebuttal analyses evaluating economic damage claims in a matter involving claims of fraud, breach of contract, mistake, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, relating to the sale of a business.
• Prepared expert rebuttal analysis critiquing an analysis of gross income and expenses presented for use in determination of alimony and support.
• Prepared expert rebuttal analysis evaluating and critiquing economic damage opinions related to a claimed breach of contract involving a financing agreement for a business line of credit.
• Assisted counsel in the evaluation of economic damage claims in a matter involving claims of breach of contract and violation of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with contractual and prospective economic relations, business defamation, business disparagement, injurious falsehood, and breach of fiduciary duty relating a dispute between am independent business telecommunications company and a former employee and the new employer.
• Prepared expert rebuttal critique of economic damages calculated in a matter involving claims of breach of contract, negligence, and breach of warranty related to a business located in Hayward, California engaged in the processing and selling of live and frozen fish products for human consumption.
• Provided expert rebuttal analyses of economic damages related to license agreements and royalty amounts for an intellectual property license, specifically evaluating economic causation issues as well as apportionment of value for technology licenses.

Types of matters

Mr. Petersen has provided professional services for a wide variety of purposes and in a wide variety of matters.  This variety is because the foundational principles in forensic accounting, valuation, and economic damages can be appropriately applied in many different situations, the following attempts to broadly summarize the different types of matters he has worked on during his career: 

Educational Qualifications

Mr. Petersen earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and a Master of Business Administration, with an emphasis in Finance, from Utah State University.

Professional Certifications

•  Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) by the American Society of Appraisers

• Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners