March 11, 2019
Putting a price – as opposed to a value – on a business
Share This: Putting a Price on a Business For a business broker or business owner, putting a price on a business versus putting a value on that business are two different things – and each will have a different impact on the price ultimately paid by a buyer when
March 3, 2019
Selling Your Business? Get Educated First!
Share This: Selling Your Business; Get Educated! Selling your business is an exercise fraught with uncertainty and misinformation. If you want to get the most value for your business when you sell, you must educate yourself about what it will take in terms of knowledge, talent, value and time.
February 25, 2019
Business Valuations and “Fake News”
Share This: Business Valuations and “Fake News” “Fake news”, while not a new phenomenon, gained currency as a catch phase during the United States’ 2016 presidential election campaign. It has since become an oft-repeated charge often leveled by conservatives against liberal and progressive news outlets. But fake news is
February 18, 2019
Sell a Family Business
Share This: Sell a Family Business: Are the Kids an Option? Many business owners think they’ll be able to pass their business on to their kids. Good idea? Maybe. But maybe not. I’ve written about this before – first here and again here – describing some of the pitfalls
February 10, 2019
Sell a business FOR equity
Share This: Sell a Business for Equity. Huh?!? Sell a business FOR equity?!? As the star of an old sitcom would say, Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, Willis? When you sell a business, you’re supposed to SELL the equity, right? Well, as it happens, many M&A transactions, particularly in the Middle
February 4, 2019
Sell a business using an earn out.
Share This: Sell a Business with an Earn-Out. What’s an “earn-out”? Essentially, it is a pricing structure used in mergers and acquisitions where the sellers of a business must “earn” part of the purchase price based on the performance of the business following its acquisition. Many business transfers –
January 28, 2019
Sell a business for cash?
Share This: Sell a Business for CASH??? Have you educated your client that to sell a business, some seller financing may be necessary? This is the first of several planned posts on how small and mid-size businesses are financed when purchased. In this post I focus on small, Main
January 20, 2019
Business for sale: A Valuation Disaster
Share This: Business For Sale: Another Disaster I recently read an article in a Michigan newspaper about a business for sale. The article described the challenge a small local business owner is facing trying to sell his business. The story included a reference to a TV feature about this
January 14, 2019
M&A: The “People” Aspect
Share This: Mergers and Acquisitions: The “People” Aspect M&A – or mergers and acquisitions – can be a complicated process that involves professional advisors and management teams on both sides of the table, reams of paper, columns of figures, bills of sale, financing statements and God-knows-what else. There is a
January 7, 2019
Estimate of Value vs Reality
Share This: Estimate of Value vs Reality The following is a true story. The names have been omitted to protect the guilty but the numbers are real; real scary. The front page headline of a recent edition of a newspaper I subscribe to read, “(Business name), Valued at Almost $6M,
