Closely Held corp in a balanced forward PS

[Guest lawman98]

We have a balance-forward PS plan that holds some closely held company stock. All participants signed requests for the stock to be retained.

We are now being told by the OCC and an outside counsel that an independent appraisal should be done for proper valuation. We have the annual reports, etc. from the company and call quarterly to confirm current sales price. The company will not agree to cooperate with an independent appraisal.

If we sell the asset, it would have to be back to the company and probably for a significant loss. We want to retain, but do not know how to value the asset to satisfy the DOL. What valuation methods would be appropriate?

The employer would agree to self-trustee to avoid any future problems with bank regulators but we don't want to advise him to do that if the valuation problem will still exist.