Business Valuation Insights
How Would Your Company Survive Without You?
November 1, 2017 / in Business Valuation, Exit Planning / by Exit Strategies
If you are like many business owners, you tend to get caught up in the daily demands of your business: managing sales and production, costs, and the bottom line. What about preservation and protection? Perish the thought, but what would happen to your company if it was unable to carry on due to your death or disability? These concerns may seem like, and may in fact be, remote possibilities. However, by putting them off, you …
EBITDA – What’s it all about?
August 23, 2017 / in Business Valuation / by Jim Leonhard
EBITDA may seem to be the holy grail of business assessment in the M&A world. Almost every potential buyer starts by asking what is the selling company’s EBITDA; and almost every seller wants to know at what multiple of EBITDA his or her business will sell for. From an accounting standpoint, EBITDA is a simple concept: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. However, it has also been referred to as “Earnings Before I Trick …
Proposed IRC Section 2704 Regulations – What’s all the fuss about?
August 3, 2017 / in Business Valuation / by Bob Altieri
Long-awaited proposed regulations under section 2704 of the Internal Revenue Code, released on August 2, 2016, would make sweeping and very significant changes to the valuation of interests in many family-controlled entities for estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax purposes. For decades, the IRS definition of Fair Market Value (FMV), which is based on the concept of the hypothetical financial buyer, are typically completed on a control basis (more than 50%, but usually 100%), as …
Which Business Valuation Will Facilitate Negotiation?
May 22, 2017 / in Business Valuation, Exit Planning / by Exit Strategies
You are getting ready to sell your business so you must ask yourself some questions: When do I want to exit? Who are the most likely buyers? Is my business adequately prepared to sell? How does it compare to other like businesses? And of course, what’s my business worth? All business valuation relies on some prediction of the future. Business appraisers apply a variety of adjustments to financial statements, theoretical constructs and historical data to …
Hidden Problems with the Price Formula in Your Buy-Sell Agreement, and Solutions
May 12, 2017 / in Business Valuation, Buy-Sell Agreements, Exit Planning / by Al Statz
It is tempting to select a formula approach to pricing shares when business partners come and go. After all, a formula is easy for everyone to understand, and in theory at least, inexpensive to apply. If you’re satisfied with getting to a price, any price, then congratulations – job done. But the goal is to arrive at a price that is fair to all concerned. This article discusses some of the unforeseen problems with buy-sell …
Make No Mistake: The IRS is Serious About Qualified Appraisals and Appraisers
May 3, 2017 / in Business Valuation, Exit Planning / by Al Statz
The IRS and the Tax Courts are serious about requiring taxpayers to properly determine the value of non-cash estate assets, gifts and charitable contributions. To avoid having the value of an inherited, gifted or donated privately-held business interest challenged or rejected by the IRS, obtain a qualified business appraisal (valuation) from a qualified business appraiser. The IRS defines a qualified appraisal as one that: is performed in accordance with generally accepted appraisal standards; meets the relevant requirements of …
Case Study: How One Entrepreneur’s Advisors Enabled a Successful Estate Transfer
March 1, 2017 / in Business Valuation, Exit Planning / by Bob Altieri
I recently had a client who wanted to transfer his medical distribution company to his son and retire with peace of mind — a common occurrence these days. Dad and his CPA requested an opinion of Fair Market Value to set the price for a transfer of stock. After I appraised the company (S corp.) stock at $2.0 million, Dad and Son asked me how to finance the transaction. Dad was reluctant to carry a long-term loan for …
Twenty Reasons to Know the Value of Your Company
February 22, 2017 / in Business Valuation, Buy-Sell Agreements, Exit Planning / by Al Statz
Private company owners and shareholders seek independent business valuations at various times for various reasons. Here are twenty situations in which you may want to obtain a business valuation: An owner has passed away and a valuation is required to settle the estate per IRS regulations An owner is getting divorced and needs to have the company or their fractional interest valued to settle the marital estate An owner wants to gift shares to his …
Rising Interest Rates and Investment
December 21, 2016 / in Business Strategy, Business Valuation, News / by Exit Strategies
Since July, the benchmark interest rate, the US 10-year treasury bond, has risen from 1.35% to over 2.55%. That’s a very big move in a short-period. Post-election day the rising rate trend accelerated. We saw a similar spike in 2013, only to see rates retreat. Is it different this time? Valuation Building Block Markets seem to believe that current rates are sustainable and can keep rising given the lower tax and infrastructure spending pronouncements coming …
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 …