In today’s Merger and Acquisition marketplace, an all-cash buyer is as rare as a balanced federal budget. Those buyers who do arrive at the closing table with cash in hand may not be over-burdened with huge bagfuls.
Almost as uncommon as the all-cash buyer is the offer of a valuation multiple that approaches (much less matches) [...]

When time comes to tell your banker you’re planning to exit your business, or when you need money you may experience feelings ranging from mild anxiety to outright panic. Why? We’ve been conditioned to believe that bankers say “no” far more often than they say “yes.” That may or may not be true but bankers [...]

Fictional owner, Peter Miller, had called his accountant to ask her to help him value his business with the idea of retiring in a few years. No stranger to Exit Planning, his accountant assembled all of Peter’s advisors and launched a complete Exit Planning process. She began, not with an examination of how a transfer [...]

Stan Briggs was perplexed and that’s why he told his advisor, “My son, Patrick, has worked in the business for the last twelve years. In that time, the business has tripled its revenues and its profits. I’ve started to think about scaling back my activity and I realize how important it is (for my own [...]

Let’s review the four areas where business owners who want to both survive in today’s economic climate and emerge from it poised for growth (or sale) can focus their energies. As you may recall, those areas are:

Preserving and Protecting Value
Identifying Value and Cash Flow
Creating Revenue
Creating Value

Most owners are currently waist-deep in the first area: cutting [...]

If you contemplate transferring your business to an insider (employees, children or co-owner) and you want to get paid the value of your business, then, generally speaking, the value of your business cannot exceed four times the true cash flow of the business. We have defined true cash flow as the amount of pre-tax money [...]

Business owners must meet the challenges presented by recent changes in the economy. What can we learn from owners and their advisors across the U.S. about which strategies are most effective? We invite you to share stories about how your company has been affected and how you are responding.
General Observations
Owners, who ran tight ships when [...]

The current recession has given all business owners, quite literally, pause: pause in growth, pause in hiring, pause to reconsider exactly where our companies are heading — or need to head — if we are to meet our owner-based goals.
I have discussed the many benefits of using the time afforded by today’s economic downturn to [...]

According to Paul Simon, there are 50 ways to leave a lover. Not being as creative as Mr. Simon, we’ve only come up with eight ways for owners to leave their companies.

Transfer the company to a family member;
Sell the business to one or more key employees;
Sell to key employees using an Employee Stock Ownership Plan [...]

The recession has brought a lot of challenges, but it has also brought the luxury of time: time to figure out exactly what you need from the sale or transfer of your company to support a comfortable post-sale lifetime and time to create enough value in your company to achieve your desired sale price.
Most owners [...]