Principals
Josette C. Ferrer - Managing Director
Josette Ferrer is the founder and a Managing Director of Clairent Advisors. Since 1993, Josette has been assisting clients with the valuation of closely held businesses and business interests, intangible assets, intellectual property, stock options, debt instruments, capital equipment/fixed assets, and other assets.
While Josette has extensive experience serving clients in many industries, areas of specialty include high technology, early-stage ventures, telecommunications, service companies, consumer products, manufacturing, and financial services companies.
Experience
Josette has been responsible for thousands of significant valuation engagements to date, with specific expertise in the following areas:
- Valuation analyses for financial reporting purposes, including allocations of purchase price related to business combinations, asset/goodwill impairment analyses, valuations related to equity grants (including stock options, performance share units, and Total Shareholder Return units), and portfolio company investment valuations.
- Valuation consulting related to tax planning and compliance, including appraisals performed for domestic/international tax planning and estate and gift tax reporting.
- Valuation analyses associated with shareholder, contract, and other disputes - including calculations for negotiation purposes, the preparation of Rule 26 expert reports, and provision of expert testimony.
- Evaluation of intellectual property, including patent and technology monetization, analysis of economic contributions, the development and assessment of strategic alternatives, and patent portfolio mining.
- Development of financial opinions such as fairness opinions, solvency opinions, and comfort letters for corporate boards, special committees, and other parties.
- Financial advisory services related to companies in the process of restructuring or emerging from bankruptcy, including work for creditors’ committees (determination of asset and business values, evaluation of potential purchase agreements, and analysis of cash flows/other operating activities) as well as debtors (development of reorganization values and appraisal work for fresh start accounting).
- Development of replacement cost estimates for insurance reporting purposes related to a variety of facilities and equipment types.
- Valuation analyses associated with other compliance matters, including the assessment of (i) loan collateral values; (ii) business and intellectual property values for E-2 Visa investment requirements; and (iii) intangible asset values related to the sale of non-profit assets to a for-profit entity in conjunction with reporting to the California Attorey General.
Education and Affiliations
- B.S. in Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley
- Financial Executives International, San Francisco Chapter. President, 2020 – present; Board Member, 2012 - present.
- American Society of Appraisers. Women's Affinity Group Leader, 2020 - present; Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, 2019 – present; Northern California Chapter Business Valuation Discipline Director, 2020 - 2023
- How Women Lead, Silicon Valley Executive Board Member and How Women Give Committee, 2018 - present
- ProVisors, Member (PA1 Group)
- Business Valuation Training Council, Member, January 2017 – December 2017
- Finance Scholars Group, Professional Affiliate
Award
- Distinguished Service Award, Financial Executives International, May 2022
Selected Presentations and Seminars
- “What Is It Worth? Valuation,” Pocket MBA 2024: Finance for Lawyers and Other Professionals, Practising Law Institute, September 2024.
- “What Is It Worth? Valuation,” Pocket MBA 2023: Finance for Lawyers and Other Professionals, Practising Law Institute, September 2023.
- “Private Equity/Mergers & Acquisitions,” panelist, Ivy Family Office Network – San Francisco Forum, June 2023.
- “What Is It Worth? Valuation,” Pocket MBA 2022: Finance for Lawyers and Other Professionals, Practising Law Institute, September 2022.
- “An Update on the Impact of COVID-19 on Valuations”, ProVisors – Bay Area Middle Market Group, November 2021.
- “What Is It Worth? Valuation,” Pocket MBA 2021: Finance for Lawyers and Other Professionals, Practising Law Institute, September 2020.
- “How Business Valuations Have Changed Since the Pandemic Hit the Economy,” Institute of Management Accountants – Diablo Valley Chapter, April 2021.
- “What Is It Worth? Valuation,” Pocket MBA 2020: Finance for Lawyers and Other Professionals, Practising Law Institute, September 2020.
- “Have COVID-19 Impairments Gone Viral?”, ProVisors – Bay Area Middle Market Group, July 2020.
- “Will COVID-19 Impairments Go Viral?”, Financial Executives International – San Francisco Chapter, May 2020.
- “Audit Review Process – View from the Independents,” ASA Fair Value Conference, November 2019.
- “What Is It Worth? Valuations,” Pocket MBA 2019: Finance for Lawyers and Other Professionals, Practising Law Institute, September 2019.
- “Beyond the Valuation Black Box – A Pre-IPO Company Case Study,” Financial Executives International – San Francisco Chapter, March 2019.
- “Case Study – Unlocking Differences Behind Diverse Valuation Opinions,” panel moderator, ASA Fair Value Conference, November 2018.
- “FASB Goodwill Impairment Test: Significant Changes You Should Know,” co-presenter for The Knowledge Group webinar, November 2017.
- “Beyond the Valuation Black Box,” Financial Executives International – San Francisco Chapter, April 2017 and Hawaii Chapter, October 2017.
- “Hot Topics in Business Valuation – The Pitfalls of Audit Review,” American Society of Appraisers, Northern California Chapter, May 2016.
- “Valuation: Looking Behind the Curtain,” Institute of Management Accountants – Diablo Valley Chapter, March 2015.
- “The Evolution of Valuation Issues Through a Company’s Lifecycle,” Financial Executives International – San Francisco Chapter, March 2015.
- “Trends and Practices in Business Valuation,” Knowledge Group, November 2014.
- “The Price is Right … Or Maybe Not? The Extended Version II,” Contra Costa Bar Association, Business Law and Corporate Counsel Section, September 2014.
- “The Importance and Value of ‘Squishy’ Intangible Assets,” Financial Executives International – San Francisco Chapter, April 2014.
- “The Price is Right … Or Maybe Not? The Extended Version,” Cal CPA East Bay Chapter, March 2014.
- “The Price is Right … Or Maybe Not?” Financial Executives International – San Francisco and Silicon Valley Chapters, March 2013 and September 2013.
- “Fair Value – Theory and Practice,” Institute of Management Accountants, February 2013.
- “New FASB Fair Value Disclosure Requirements (ASU 2011-04)”, panel participant, The Knowledge Congress Webcast, January 2013.
- “Impairments and Intangibles,” Institute of Management Accountants -- Controllers’ Forum, August 2012.
- “Business Combinations and Purchase Price Allocations,” Institute of Management Accountants -- Knowledge Synergized Conference, August 2012.
- “Joint Ventures, VIEs, and Consolidation,” panel participant, Institute of Management Accountants -- Knowledge Synergized Conference, August 2012.
- "Qualitative Goodwill Impairment Assessment (ASU 2011-08)", Institute of Management Accountants, December 2011.
- "Wine Industry M&A Outlook" presentation which involved a discussion on fair value issues, Financial Executives International, December 2011.
- "The Impact of Volatility on M&A and Valuation", panel participant, Financial Executives International, September 2011.
- "Entrepreneurship" discussion focusing on female entrepreneurs, panel participant, Institute of Management Accountants, August 2011.
Leo Fang - Managing Director
Leo Fang is a Managing Director at Clairent Advisors, and leads the firm’s quantitative finance practice – assisting clients with valuations of complex securities such as options, warrants, preferred and common stock in privately-held companies, management incentive plans, (including those with performance-based and market conditions), convertible bonds, financial derivatives, and other contingent assets and liabilities.
Leo brings considerable experience in the modeling of complex algorithms using analytical tools. He also has extensive expertise in technology valuation and has been a part of several mergers and acquisitions on both the buy and sell sides. Since 1995, he has worked extensively in technology modeling and development, is a veteran of multiple Silicon Valley startups with successful exits, and has been on the executive team of several entrepreneurial ventures.
Experience
Leo’s operational experience includes serving as President and CEO of Acupoint Systems, an early pioneer of in-store mobile advertising. Prior to founding Accupoint, Leo was Executive VP of SBE, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed embedded systems and storage software company. At various points of Leo’s tenure at SBE, he led the marketing and engineering organizations and helped successfully conclude merger negotiations with Neonode, Inc. an innovator of touchscreen technologies. Leo arrived at SBE as part of the successful sale of PyX Technologies, a leading Internet Storage Area Network software start-up, where he was the Chief Operating Officer and brought about its first major engagement with a Fortune 1000 technology firm.
Leo’s technical modeling and engineering expertise includes serving as the Director of SERDES (Serializer/Deserializer) and USB Development at LSI Logic. At LSI, he was granted one U.S. patent and led a large, multi-disciplinary design engineering department focused on high-speed data communications with annual design win revenues of over $400 million. Leo previously held several senior level engineering positions in the hard disk drive and communications arena including DataPath Systems (acquired by LSI Logic) where he was a Principal Engineer and Systems Architect.
Education and Affiliations
- B.S. in EECS & Material Science Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
- M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Publication and Patents
- Kai Keung Chan, Jung-Sheng Hoei, Pankaj Joshi, Leo Fang. Automatic Delay Matching Circuit for Data Serializer. LSI Logic Corporation, assignee. Patent 6677793. 13 Jan. 2004.
- L.L. Lee, D. Laughlin, L. Fang, D.N. Lambeth, “Effects of Cr Intermediate Layers on CoCrPt Thin Film Media on NiAl Underlayers,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 31, No. 6, pp. 2728-2730 (1995).
- L. Fang and D.N. Lambeth, “A New High Coercivity Cobalt Alloy Thin Film Medium Structure for Longitudinal Recording,” Applied Physics Letters, 65, pp. 3137-3179 (1994).
Team and Affiliations
Our team includes consultants with experience ranging from ten to over 25 years – with expertise in various areas – including specific valuation engagement purposes (e.g., financial reporting), asset types (e.g., equipment), as well as specific industries.
Clairent is affiliated with Finance Scholars Group (“FSG”), a national consulting firm which provides litigation support, expert witness, valuation, accounting, and other consulting services. As an affiliate of FSG, Clairent often collaborates with FSG’s team. Click here to learn more about FSG.
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