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Buying and Selling

Maximizing your Business Value

As experts in business growth, we can help you maximize your business value. Selling a business is not like selling a house, and your business can’t be ‘staged.’ We can help you to maximize your value drivers and enhance value for your shareholders. From operating metrics to financial performance to business structure, we can help you create and protect wealth.

Buyers

There are two kinds of buyers for your business. Your employees, managers and family members are called ‘non-strategic buyers’ as they may have an intimate knowledge of your business operations but they usually do not have deep pockets to trigger a cash transaction and may require payment terms.

‘Strategic buyers’ include your customers, suppliers, competitors, consolidators and large players who can leverage your client list or geographic presence or some other factor to dramatically increase their own business as well as yours. Strategic buyers usually have deep pockets, full management teams and business processes, and can accelerate your exit from the business in terms of both time and money.

Please see our key drivers below or our Business Growth services for more information and ideas on how to increase the value of your business. Or, contact us directly at info@symcoandco.com for a complimentary consultation.

Confidential Listings of Businesses for Sale

If you are an investor or entrepreneur seeking to acquire or invest in businesses operating in our market, please contact us directly to obtain our confidential listings at info@symcoandco.com. We work directly with our team of lawyers, tax specialists, bankers and other interested parties in helping entrepreneurs to expand, acquire or exit their business interests.

If you would like assistance in figuring out how and where to start, please call us at 1-866-537-9111 or via email at info@symcoandco.com for a complimentary consultation.

Purchase and Sale of Business (Expansion and Exit Strategies)

Valuation and equity are long-term goals that require daily focus.

We can help you to expand your business through merger or acquisition or to cash in and create financial wealth by divesting of your business.

Key drivers of business value in privately-held businesses are:

  • The business can run without the owner being there – if you have to be there all the time, do you have a business…or a job?
  • A management team runs the company, with power to hire and fire independently of owner approval.
  • The company has a business plan and a budget and uses them to run the company, just like a big company.
  • Work procedures are documented – to enhance training, performance management and efficiency.
  • Financial statements show healthy profits and a strong balance sheet – excessive tax minimization can hurt your business valuation significantly.
  • Working capital management – the amount of cash tied up in operating your business – can result in a significant adjustment to your purchase price.
  • Business structure – business value can be enhanced by separating and protecting different streams of revenues or operational activities.
  • Planning ahead – certain tax structures need to exist for at least two years in order to be effective.

If Phil wasn’t working with us, I think we would still be in the early stages of the deal. But, instead he accelerated the process. — Lorne Schnell, Morsky Industrial

More…

Some of Symco & Co.’s services for privately-held mergers, acquisitions or divestitures include:

  • Confidential evaluation of business transitions including purchase or sale.
  • Structuring a business for purchase, succession, transition or sale.
  • Identifying value drivers and understanding the value of a business or division.
  • Preparing key marketing documents that position your business for sale.
  • Performing due diligence on acquisition targets.
  • Seeking strategic buyers such as competitors, customers or consolidators.
  • Seeking non-strategic buyers such as employees, managers or family members.
  • Negotiating with potential purchasers or sellers and their professional advisors.
  • Providing a collaborative professional team that specializes in all aspects of a transaction including accounting, tax, legal, financing and insurance.
  • Seeking debt and/or equity financing support for your transaction, either buying or selling.

Most business owners only sell their business once in their lifetime. This is a difficult and emotionally challenging process that is further complicated with multiple financial and planning decisions.

Business value depends on several internal factors including controllable factors such as revenue and profit growth, cash flow, management team, customer diversification, competitive advantages, and strategic and operational factors.

External factors that are less controllable are interest rates, currency fluctuations, economic and political conditions, government regulations, technological developments and competitive actions.

The biggest factor affecting business value is whether the owner needs to be there all the time or if the business can run independently. A business with an absentee owner, a management team in place, and stable or growing cash flows, will be worth significantly more than a business with higher profits but which needs the owner’s constant hand-holding.

The best position is when your business value is at its highest, you have freedom from your time commitments to the business, you are generating surplus cash flow, and you are positioned to find strategic buyers who will compete to purchase your business.