Services
Allocations involving real estate, intangible assets, and contingent consideration, supported with audit-defensible methodology and review-response capacity.
What this covers
PPAs in transactions where the acquired company holds operating real estate, real-estate-intensive operations, or related-party leases, and where the audit team needs the property and intangible components separated cleanly. The work covers identifiable intangible asset valuation (customer relationships, technology, trade names, favorable / unfavorable contracts), contingent consideration measurement, and goodwill residual.
Methodologies include relief-from-royalty, multi-period excess earnings (MEEM), with-and-without, replacement cost, and Monte Carlo or scenario simulation for contingent consideration and earn-outs. M&A transaction work is a significant part of the practice, from pre-transaction valuation through purchase price allocation and post-close impairment analysis.
Who this is for
Built for the review audiences who actually scrutinize this work.
When to call LHM
Why this gets complicated
PPA work is unusually exposed to reviewer second-guessing. Royalty-rate selection, customer-attrition assumptions, contributory-asset-charge construction, and discount-rate calibration are all contestable, and a sloppy answer in one area can cascade through the entire allocation. When real property is involved, the going-concern / fee-simple boundary adds another axis of risk.
The right answer depends on (a) the acquirer's reporting context, (b) the audit firm's posture, (c) the integration plan for the acquired business, and (d) whether the deal is the first of a series. LHM scopes accordingly. A one-off PPA for a private filer is not the same engagement as a methodology baseline for a serial acquirer.
What LHM evaluates
Standards and review audiences
Deliverables
Related reading
Jan 2026 · 11 min read
A mixed-asset PPA isn’t five reports stapled together. The audit comments come where the workstreams fail to reconcile, and the PCAOB’s 2025 inspection findings show where firms keep getting it wrong.
Nov 2025 · 10 min read
The California Supreme Court’s August ruling didn’t make general headlines, but for hotels, healthcare, senior housing, and any other operating real estate where intangibles run alongside the building, it changed the standard of proof.
Sep 2026
For most informal purposes, the company is one asset. For SBA loans, federal financing, ASC 805 allocations, estate planning, divorce, partner buyouts, and property-tax appeals, the components have to be valued under their respective standards.
Most engagements begin with a 20–30 minute conversation about scope, timing, and the right analytical path. There is no charge for an initial conversation.