Houston Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Blog
The buyers and the sellers couldn’t agree on how much the company was worth.
A business is essentially an asset, but assigning a value to this type of asset tends to be very complex. If your retirement plan (and maybe your estate plan for your heirs) relies upon the business, do you know what your business is truly worth?
For a sobering problem many business owners end up facing when it comes to valuing their business, be sure to read a recent article in Forbes titled “Is Your Business Worth As Much As You Think? Many Aren't.”
At the core of the article is an interpretation of findings recently released by Pepperdine University in its 2014 Capital Markets Report. The key finding: buyers and sellers of businesses cannot agree on how much they are worth. Instead of negotiating back and forth to an eventual middle ground value, about 1 in 3 engagements fell through without any sale at all.
Now, keep in mind that it is always in the nature of high-pressure deals to come to such divisive and decisive ends. However, all the same there is a lesson to learn when so much is at stake.
What is your business worth and how do you prove it? How do you approach the sale and how do you structure your assets thereafter? This is a complex transaction. Putting it into the proper context and value is essential both in the beginning and the end of the process.
Reference: Forbes (March 2, 2014) “Is Your Business Worth As Much As You Think? Many Aren't”