| Friday, November 20, 2009 Selling a business or land? Private Valuations provides guidance on prices they could fetch Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Jeanne Lang Jones Staff Writer  Photo: Dan Schlatter CEO and principal Adrien “Mick” Gamache founded Private Valuations in 1995. The economic downturn is providing Bellevue-based  Private Valuations Inc. with plenty of work as local banks try to determine how far real estate values have fallen and businesses look for tax savings.Among the fastest-growing private companies in Washington state, the privately held appraisal firm helps clients determine such pressing matters as the value of their personal estates or family business, the monetary worth of business patents and what the company headquarters might sell for. Founded in 1995 by CEO and principal Adrien “Mick” Gamache, Private Valuations ranked 65th on the Puget Sound Business Journal’s 2009 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies. The company reported a 58.5 percent growth in revenue from 2006 to 2008, increasing from $910,000 in 2006 to $1.45 million in 2008. Gamache expects firm revenue to hold steady at $1.4 million again this year. The firm has 10 employees, including its three principals: Gamache; George Goundry, who specializes in financial valuations for estate and income tax planning, litigation, and mergers and acquisitions; and George Naumann, who appraises existing properties and proposed development projects for property owners and lenders. Private Valuations is one of the few appraisal firms that can do both business valuations and real estate appraisals, Gamache said. The combination is particularly useful in evaluating family-owned businesses that own their own headquarters. The one thing the firm does not do is appraise equipment and machinery. That work is subcontracted to a firm in Portland. Valuing real estate these days can be tricky, Naumann said. Fair market value requires a willing buyer and seller, but there have been few of those of late. So Naumann spends a lot of time talking to various industry sources and reading industry publications to get “a barometer for where the market is.” Private Valuations has experience with a range of property types, including hotels and motels, apartment complexes, manufacturing plants, gas stations with convenience stores, timberland and proposed development projects. Appraisers can help clients in a variety of ways, such as valuing businesses for potential acquisition or sale, pricing stock for employee stock incentive plans or identifying nonproductive business lines. They also can help with estate and business succession planning and litigation support. Some assignments are more difficult than others, Gamache said. Valuing dot-com companies during the tech boom was particularly challenging — mainly because so few were actually making any money despite their robust stock prices, he said. Gas stations with convenience stores are also tricky to value because so much depends on the location rather than the size of the store, Naumann said. Gamache, Goundry and Naumann appear to get along well despite their very different backgrounds. Gamache, for instance, is a part-time actor. On a recent workday, he was sporting a natty goatee for his role in the upcoming film, “The Penitent Man,” which is currently being filmed in the Seattle area by local filmmaker Nicholas Gyeney. The production by Mirror Images Ltd. stars Lance Henriksen, the actor who played the robot in “Aliens,” and Andrew Keegan, who starred in “10 Things I Hate About You.” Gamache plays “The Shadowed Man,” an older version of one of the main characters. He was looking forward to performing a scene at the Biltmore Apartments on Capitol Hill in which he shoots someone. Goundry is a former Marine who was trained as a military interrogator and is fluent in Korean. It might seem a stretch but Goundry said his military training has proved handy. “The training teaches you to research something quickly so you can tell if someone is telling you the truth,” Goundry said. “Those are basic research skills that are applicable to any type of research.” His fluency in Korean helps in appraising hotels, motels and gas stations with convenience stores because so many owners of the convenience stores are Korean Americans. To keep their business growing, Gamache, Goundry and Naumann work to maintain good relationships with local law firms and accounting firms. “Our strategy is simply to keep networking with people we want to do business with. Personal relationships count for a lot,” Gamache said. “Mailers and ads in the papers don’t generate much work for you.” The firm is also looking at supplementing its business by focusing on growth in areas where there is an increasing need for valuations and appraisals, such as personal and corporate bankruptcy. Private Valuations is also looking at working more closely with farmers and vineyard owners who could benefit from the firm’s ability to do both business and real estate valuations. |
