But isn’t that basically the line of business of an exchange and a trading firm, supposedly one specializing in arbitrage? And despite its difficulty, which I can understand, it still seems like something that should be a bit more automated than the CEO typing them into a spreadsheet a week before the company collapses and warning readers of the “obvious” chance of typos.
Erm yes you are correct, this is the line of business they’re in and they should have had better controls for valuing their assets.
Typically there’s a 3rd party fund administrator whose core responsibilities include calculating the value (NAV) of the fund.
Sometimes funds have Level 2 or Level 3 assets, which may require management effort to value and may not have real-time pricing available.
Depending on your line of business, this is actually not a simple thing when you're trying to mark assets to market in a meaningful way. When everything you own is liquid, it's one thing. When things are less liquid, it's another. This is true even of completely legitimate businesses.