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Selling an Ecommerce Business in the Lower Middle Market
October 10, 2016 / in Exit Planning, Sell a Business / by Exit Strategies
With continuing growth in consumer online spending and many high-profile public acquisitions this year, it seems like a great time to sell your online retail business. But things are never quite as simple as they appear. Over the past few months, several impressive acquisitions have been announced in the public markets. Walmart has purchased Jet.com at a jaw dropping $3.3 billion; a move that is presumably Walmart’s effort to narrow Amazon’s ever-increasing dominance. Consumer brands company, …
Recent Trends in the M&A Market
October 5, 2016 / in Acquire a Business, News, Sell a Business / by Jim Leonhard
Pepperdine University, of Malibu, California, in conjunction with the International Business Brokers Association and M&A Source, publishes a quarterly Market Pulse Survey of business brokers that provides useful information concerning the market for Main Street ($0-$2M sales price) and lower middle market ($2-$50M sales price) businesses. Highlights from their most recent report for Q1 2016, include: 50% of all business sell Retirement is still the prime motivating factor for sellers followed by burnout. The strongest growth …
Why is That Information Needed?!?
September 28, 2016 / in Business Valuation, Exit Planning / by Exit Strategies
When we begin a business valuation project the first thing we do is provide an extensive document request list. A week or two into the analysis, we send a customized questionnaire to help us understand the business in appropriate depth. Our questions are designed to understand the facts and circumstances of your business well enough to develop a reliable opinion of value. To the extent we can, we try to streamline and tailor our requests so as not to …
The Zen Art of Cooperative Negotiation
September 21, 2016 / in Exit Planning / by Don Ross
The common image of an M&A negotiation between a buyer and a seller is that of a rugby scrum: two masses of interlocked muscled bodies scheming and bulldozing their collective strengths in opposing directions in an effort to secure the prize without compromise and ultimately yield one winner and one loser. In contrast, what I call the “Zen Art of Cooperative Negotiation” is a playing field where the players (the principals and their attorney, M&A broker, and …
Fair Market Value — is it really fair?
September 14, 2016 / in Business Valuation / by Bob Altieri
In the business valuation profession, one determines Fair Market Value through analysis of the company and its management structure, the industry in which it participates, economic conditions and trends present in the industry, competitive environment, and any other factors that help to define the risk of investing in the enterprise. This analysis of risk is what many in the appraisal profession term as the subjective part of the valuation analysis, or “the art” of appraisal analysis. …
Indigo Piping Systems Sold to Strategic Acquirer
September 9, 2016 / in News / by Al Statz
Exit Strategies is pleased to announce the strategic acquisition of California-based construction materials distribution company Indigo Piping Systems, by Dateline Exports, Inc. of Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1990 in Berkeley, California, Indigo offers a range of American brands of piping, valves and mechanical products for water infrastructure, fire protection and mechanical construction projects around the world. Indigo offers a complete supply service from expert product selection assistance to accurate on-time delivery to the international job site or port …
Using Retention Bonuses to Enable an M&A Transaction
September 7, 2016 / in Exit Planning, Sell a Business / by Al Statz
Assurance of business continuity is essential to most business acquisitions, and for small to mid-size companies, this often translates to retaining key employees. This blog looks at using a simple tool, called a stay bonus or retention bonus, to keep your key people on board through a sale or merger of your company. Bonuses are commonly used in business to reward employees for performance, such as hitting a sales target, implementing a new system, or boosting manufacturing productivity. …
Update on Estate and Gift Tax Changes Coming in 2016
September 5, 2016 / in Business Valuation / by Louis Cionci
Proposed rule changes would limit the practice of discounting the value of stakes in family businesses for estate and gift tax purposes—an update regarding IRS timeline. The U.S. Treasury Department and the IRS are planning to introduce new regulations aimed at estate and gift transfers of closely held family businesses. The new rules would limit the practice of discounting minority stakes in closely held family owned businesses because of restrictions on an owner’s ability to …
Can You Sell a Contracting Business to a Buyer Without a License?
August 31, 2016 / in Exit Planning, Sell a Business / by Adam Wiskind
Solar Installers, General Contractors, Electricians and Plumbers in California have something in common when it comes to selling their businesses. All of these businesses require a Contractors State Licensing Board (CSLB) license to operate. This can be an additional burden to the process of transitioning a business to a new owner. What if a potential buyer doesn’t have the necessary licenses? The easiest solution to this issue is to target investors that already have the Licenses …
Buried in the Corporate Archives – a Valuation Case Study
August 23, 2016 / in Business Strategy, Business Valuation / by Exit Strategies
A lot of our valuation work is done for the purpose of internal share transfers of private businesses, or buy-sell transactions. In doing this work, we often see that owners have overlooked or neglected to keep important documents up to date. One such document is the buy-sell agreement, which articulates important legal, tax, valuation and financing issues that are important to ensuring smooth share transfers and business continuity. We recently evaluated a holding company with a fair …
Exit Strategies Group, Inc. is a leading provider of business sales and acquisitions, business valuations, and exit planning services for family owned and closely-held companies since 2002.
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