Z. Christopher Mercer

Chris Mercer is author of Buy-Sell Agreements for Closely Held and Family Business Owners and a number of other books pertaining to businesses and business valuation.

Chris is internationally known as a business valuation expert. He is known for taking on major topics in valuation and then writing about them extensively. His books, Valuing Financial Institutions, Quantifying Marketability Discounts, and Business Valuation: An Integrated Theory Second Edition are prime examples of this.

Chris started Mercer Capital (www.mercercapital.com), a major independent business valuation and investment banking firm, in 1982. He has experienced a number of transitions in his career at Mercer Capital, including the sale of half of the business to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) a few years ago.

In recent years, he has focused on transitional questions faced by his fellow Baby Boomer business owners like: "Is your business ready for sale?" and Do you treat your business as the investment that it is?" and "Will your buy-sell agreement work to provide reasonable resolutions to future transactions?" and so on. He has addressed numerous groups of business owners and fellow professionals in responding to these and similar questions.

He enjoys assisting financial planners and other professionals with seminars or webinars geared to their business owner clients. His books are often used as handout materials for these sessions. He also loves to speak to fellow business owners about business transition questions and valuation-related topics.

Chris lives in Memphis, the worldwide headquarters of Mercer Capital, and travels often to his River House in Port Orange (think Daytona Beach), Florida. Wherever he is, he will be working on walking at least 10,000 steps each day and writing on his next book.

Chris may be contacted at mercerc@mercercapital.com or via telephone at 901-685-2120.