Test Drive SPARDATA's Pricing Service

Since our customers tend to use SPARDATA’s pricing service year after year, we organize their data by fiscal year. For example all 2004 values are found in the 2004 Reports database. Most of the assets there will have a 12/31 fiscal year end but others will have 6/30, 9/30 or different fiscal year ends.

Before you can access a database, you must pass through SPARDATA’s robust security system by supplying a User ID and Password. To prevent unauthorized data access our system includes a firewall, network protections and also safeguards inherent in the SQL database.

Our clients are entitled to request as many passwords as they need, without extra charge. We can give individual passwords different levels of access: for example someone at the home office may access the entire database whereas a trust officer in the field may access only his or her clients’ assets.

Having successfully passed through security, you see the “Pricing View” -- a list of every asset you asked SPARDATA to price, arranged alphabetically by name; and some key financial information about each.

• “NAV” means Net Asset Value and “FMV” means Fair Market Value. When there is a difference between the two figures it means SPARDATA was asked to value a minority (or non-controlling) interest so it discounted NAV to reflect the asset’s “lack of control” and/or “lack of marketability”.
• The icons in the “Status” column show at a glance where the valuation stands in SPARDATA’s valuation process. For example the “ ” icon means the report has been completed. The “ ” icon means the report’s 1 st draft in being edited by an analyst.

For employees in an institution’s operations, compliance and other “back office” areas the Pricing View provides all the information they normally need. (Occasionally someone might need more information to respond to a price challenge or a regulatory inquiry.) For example those responsible for obtaining values for statement and reporting purposes can download the Pricing View into an Excel spreadsheet, then use it to populate their pricing database. Several trust accounting system vendors are building interfaces to SPARDATA so this download/upload process can occur automatically.

Clicking on the “2004 Report” link opens up a substantial, well-written, downloadable SPARDATA research report. Such reports are written for every asset SPARDATA is asked to price.

For those in the back office with operations or compliance responsibilities, these reports are ideal for responding to price challenges; and to demonstrate to Federal and state regulators (as well as litigants) that a Sundry Asset’s value was established by an independent third-party appraiser.

For those in the front office, sharing these reports with Sundry Asset owners is a tremendous value-added service because owners use the report for estate and retirement planning, for buy-sells, for succession planning, to grant stock options or bonuses to key employees, and for many other purposes.

Clicking on the “Tab 4” link opens up a collection of reference documents SPARDATA gathered from the Sundry Asset issuer in the production process. To price a Sundry Asset, SPARDATA may collect documentation including financial statements or tax returns; the stockholders agreement, partnership agreement, mortgage or other instrument that created the asset; property tax bills; correspondence etc.

One great benefit is that SPARDATA converts these paper documents into Adobe Acrobat ® (.pdf) files you can access ever afterwards at SPARDATA’s website with the click of a mouse. (For a nominal fee you may also purchase CD-ROMs containing the data.) No longer need you spend money archiving bulky files, or waste time trying to locate those files years later.

This concludes your test drive. As you can see, SPARDATA makes pricing Sundry Assets just as easy as pricing exchange-traded stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

You are looking at a “Fact Sheet” for Sample Automotive Dealership, Inc. SPARDATA prepares a Fact Sheet for every asset it values. Fact Sheets contain:

• Links . As you will see on the next slides, clicking on the “2004 Report” link opens SPARDATA’s valuation report and clicking on the “Tab 4” link opens an Adobe Acrobat ® (.pdf) copy of tax returns and other key documents SPARDATA used to reach its value conclusions. If SPARDATA obtained documents that do not change from year to year (such as stock certificates, organizational documents etc.), these would be found in the “Permanent Reference” area.
  
• Valuation Information . Here is more information about the asset than appeared in the Pricing View; including the names of the SPARDATA analyst who did the valuation and the SPARDATA Account Manager should you have any questions.
  
• Log . SPARDATA’s valuation process is lengthy and complex, and it often takes weeks or months for an asset to be valued. During that process we update the log each time any action occurs – if we send an information request or receive a reply; if the analyst starts working on a draft or gets feedback from an editor, etc. That way your people know where things stand, without having to call SPARDATA to find out.