Business dinners, rounds of golf and holiday gift baskets are everyday business expenses for many U.S.-based professionals. These expenditures are often viewed as a necessity in building business relationships and showing appreciation to clients for their loyalty. Internationally, such practices are in many cases even more deeply ingrained in a country’s culture and tradition. Rather than a complement to daily business proceedings, entertainment and gift-giving are often viewed as highly essential in creating and maintaining customer relationships.

Healthcare is a $3 trillion industry with significant variation in local market demographics and socio-economics, care-delivery fragmentation, efficiency and effectiveness, as well as competitive intensity. A&M's analysis suggests that the growing local market power of hospital-led health systems and insurance companies is “squeezing” downstream costs without necessarily enhancing clinical outcomes or operational efficiencies on a commensurate level. The messaging of reform far exceeds the reality of change. This article seeks to provide supporting evidence to our hypothesis.

Retailers of all kinds look to the holiday season as a time for revenue-generation, as shoppers fulfill their wish-lists with purchases big and small. What often emerges following this time of year, are the trends that have shaped and influenced customer spend and behaviors.

How is it possible to generate cash savings from assets that have disposed of previously, in many cases years ago? The answer resides in recently released Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) regulations. If you have conducted renovations of your hotel and thus disposed of assets, yet are still depreciating the disposed assets for tax purposes, the new regulations allow for a deduction of the carrying value of the disposed assets. The effect is that by deducting the carrying value of the disposed assets immediately - rather than continuing to depreciate these assets over longer periods of time - there is a net present value savings generated by the deduction.

Over the past 20 years, the real property valuation profession has reached a consensus regarding the appropriate framework and analytical methodologies for evaluating the potential effect of environmental contamination on the market value of real property. Coincidentally, also during the last 20 years, through Daubert, et al. v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993), the courts have established a more robust gatekeeping process to shield triers of fact and litigants from unreliable expert opinions and testimony.

Healthcare transaction scrutiny is becoming increasingly more common in today’s complex regulatory environment. Deals such as the consolidation of physician practices, hospital mergers and acquisitions, and hospital purchases of physician groups and specialty clinics all require a high level of valuation and healthcare compliance expertise to ensure that all state and U.S. regulatory requirements have been met.

Alvarez & Marsal will present and exhibit at the world’s leading risk management conference, RiskMinds International, 8th December 2014. Fernando de la Mora and Paul Sharma examine the key takeaways and recommendations for banks’ future success.

<p>Private equity investors and strategic acquirers slowed the pace of restaurant acquisitions in the 3rd&nbsp;quarter of 2014. Investment activity decreased from 35 announced restaurant transactions during the 2nd&nbsp;quarter of 2014 to 22 during the 3rd&nbsp;quarter of 2014, according to S&amp;P Capital IQ.</p>

E-tailing market size in India stood at US$2.3 billion as of 2013 and is expected to reach US$17 billion by 2018. While the overall retail market continues to grow at close to 6 percent (year-over-year), compounded annual growth rate estimated for e-tailing in India is approximately 50 percent over the next five years. What sets e-tailing apart from the traditional retail market is the convenience of getting the product delivered to your doorstep and the access to a variety of products not easily accessible to many customers.

After the sale of a company, buyers and sellers often dispute calculations of working capital adjustments and amounts due under earn-outs. They may allege breaches of representations and warranties, or assert fraud claims.

U.S. insurers should pay close attention to the Federal Reserve's 2014 Insurance Quantitative Impact Study (QIS) as it may affect future insurance regulation and capital adequacy requirements.

On October 31, 2014, the IRS released proposed regulations that contain further guidance on the application of Code Section 751(b). The proposed regulations for the most part follow the methodology originally outlined in Notice 2006-14 and provide an anti-abuse rule.

In February of this year, the House Committee on Ways and Means released the proposed Tax Reform Act of 2014, which included several restrictions on REIT conversions including but not limited to disallowing tax-free spinoffs into a REIT and more narrowly defining real property for REIT purposes.

Have you relied on guidance from the Internal Revenue Service to analyze a situation, structure a transaction or obtain an instructional roadmap for completing your tax returns? To a seasoned tax professional, this question may seem rhetorical. However, according to a recent Tax Court decision, relying on certain IRS guidance may put you in an unexpected defenseless position, one that begs the thought “you have to be kidding me.”

Manos Kotronakis brings more than 20 years of experience in management and leadership roles in both fast-moving consumer goods and private equity. Prior to joining A&M, he was a partner and COO for Global Finance, a leading Greek private equity firm, serving on the Investment Committee and on the Human Resources and Compensation Committee.