Sylvia H. Cho

Executive summary
 

Sylvia is a Principal with the Advisory Services practice of Grant Thornton LLP’s Chicago office. She serves as the National Asset Management Valuation Leader. She has nearly twenty years of valuation and business advisory experience.

Sylvia specializes in providing valuation services for financial reporting, litigation, and tax purposes spanning many industries but with a particular emphasis on asset management, airlines, technology, gaming, hospitality, manufacturing, and life sciences. Sylvia has also provided valuations for transaction advisory, management and strategic planning, bankruptcies, divestitures, and restructuring purposes.

Sylvia has significant experience in assisting public and private clients in the application of complex accounting literature for financial reporting and tax valuations. She has also advised and prepared clients to address and defend the adequacy of liquidity with respect to financial covenants, pre-transaction valuation analyses, operating and financial leverage, and recapitalization initiatives with auditors, lenders, Board of Directors, and investors.

Sylvia’s valuation experience encompasses a variety of matters including purchase price allocations, goodwill impairment studies, divestitures, carve-outs, portfolio investment valuations, capital impairment testing, and common and preferred stock valuations. She is also a subject matter expert that specializes in loyalty programs and co-brand credit card portfolios.

In addition, Sylvia is well versed in valuing business interests, determining solvency, and calculating damages for litigation purposes. Her solvency experience includes opinions ranging in size and industry from a hospital with $100 million in revenue to a computer manufacturer with over $5 billion in revenue.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton, Sylvia was a financial consultant at Huron Consulting Group with a focus on valuation, forensic investigations, and litigation.

Professional qualifications and memberships

• Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA), American Society of Appraisers
• Member of the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants, former Chairman of its international task force
• Advisory Board Member, American Bankruptcy Institute: VALCON
• Member, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)

Presentations and publications

• Presented on national Private Equity International (PEI) CFO/COO Roundtable, “Approaching valuation in the year ahead”, March 25, 2021
• Presented on national American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) panel, “Fair value measurements in an era of uncertainty”, October 22, 2020
• Presented on national Turnaround Management Association (TMA) panel, “Role of Valuation in Bankruptcy & Restructuring”, October 12, 2018
• Presented on national American Bankruptcy Institute VALCON panel, “Indicators of Future Distress”, May 16, 2018

Education

• BS in Finance, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign