It is widely-believed in the investment banking industry that you can find a firm that will provide a fairness opinion for virtually any transaction. They are a

It is widely-believed in the investment banking industry that you can find a firm that will provide a fairness opinion for virtually any transaction. They are a little bit more costly than $50K, but not more than an order of magnitude for small transactions. Mergers and Inquisitions says, "As you might guess, banks never say a deal is 'unfair' – the Opinion is just a rubber stamp to justify the deal to investors."[1] (For the record, I never saw any unethical fairness opinions while I was in investment banking) The consulting industry has similar dynamics. They are mainly there to provide evidence in favor of a plan proposed by whomever is their primary contact. See, for example, the article by the BCG consultant at [2]: "What I could not get my head around was having to force-fit analysis to a conclusion. In one case, the question I was tasked with solving had a clear and unambiguous answer: By my estimate, the client’s plan of action had a net present discounted value of negative one billion dollars. Even after accounting for some degree of error in my reckoning, I could still be sure that theirs was a losing proposition. But the client did not want analysis that contradicted their own, and my manager told me plainly that it was not our place to question what the client wanted." 1: http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/investment-banking-fairness-opinions/ http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/investment-banking-fai... 2: http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html