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C. Court's Analysis and Conclusions
The respective valuation methodologies adopted by the parties'
experts produced vastly different results. Petitioner's experts
used a simple, traditional methodology to value an unusual
corporate capital structure, which resulted in little or no premium
for voting rights. On the other hand, respondent's experts used a
valuation methodology which, given the Simplot family's philosophy,
appears to accord the class A stock an extraordinarily high premium
for its voting privileges.
Not unexpectedly, petitioner's experts found fault with the
analyses and conclusions of respondent's experts and vice versa.
We agree that each of the experts' analyses and conclusions is
subject, to an extent, to valid criticism. Specifically, we
believe, among other things, the situations involved in the data
and studies relied upon by both sets of experts to be so different
from the situation involved herein that such data and studies are
inapplicable to the case at hand.
The differing views of the experts as to the proper
methodology to be used in valuing decedent's class A voting shares
vis-a-vis his class B nonvoting shares illustrate the difficulty in
valuing shares of unlisted stock in a large, family-controlled
corporation. Moreover, those differing views give credence to the
belief that valuation is at best an inexact science.
The aforesaid notwithstanding, in fulfilling our task, we deem
it proper to value decedent's shares of class A voting and class B
nonvoting stock in J.R. Simplot Co. using one of the expert's
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