Another view of the private company market from Mergerstat
After declining 26% in 2008, the number of mergers and acquisitions announced in the U.S. decreased only 13% in 2009. “The market, it seems, had nowhere to go but up.” reports FactSet/Mergerstat. On the bright side (if there is one) dealflow has increased each quarter in 2009, the longest such trend since 1995-1996.
In addition to [...]
Having trouble selling your minority shares? Try these new “secondary markets”
Adam Oliveri, Managing Director for SecondMarket, told commercial lawyers at the ABA Business Law Sections annual meeting in Denver last weekend that “the public capital markets are broken.” This comes as no surprise to BV.com readers!
SecondMarket is one of the new centralized sales platforms for illiquid assets, and here’s some evidence from Oliveri regarding [...]
Need to benchmark your performance? 7-year industry reports may be your best bet
Many owners, analysts, and CFOs are discovering that they can’t capture the current full buzsiness cycle with the standard 3 and 5 year financial history reports available from RMA and other providers. To solve this problem, BizMiner has added 2002-2004 data to their reports so that subscribers now have a choice of selecting 3 yr., [...]
A simple question that some owners chose not to answer
When thinking of succession planning, there are many standard questions–do the kids want the business? Am I taking enough out of the business for retirement? Do I want to keep working? What do my partners think?
But, BV.com’s interviews show that a surprising number of owners don’t, won’t, or can’t answer the simple valuation question; [...]
Depressing: median sale price/revenues is now 47%
If you’re thinking of selling your business in 2010…take care. Valuation multiples have definitely taken a fall over the past two to three years, and the newest data from Pratt’s Stats® shows no sign of the much-publicized “recovery:”
Year of Sale
Count
Median revenue
Median selling price
Median price/ sales multiple
Median price/ gross profit
2007
1,493
$844K
$419K
0.58
1.03
2008
1,626
$535K
$250K
0.52
0.88
2009
862
$483K
$207K
0.47
0.74
“It’s important to note that the above includes [...]
ACG hopes for M&A market recovery as sellers expectations shift
“Business owners are slowly realizing that valuations will not return to what they were several years ago. Private equity and strategic buyers are all too aware of this and are patiently waiting for sellers to come to grips with the new valuation paradigm and to take some money off the table,” says Harris Smith, Managing [...]
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