Selling a business is hard. It’s even harder when you don’t know how much said business is worth.
Experts from Performance Brokerage Services and Morgan Stanley tried to offer truck dealers guidance on that latter point Thursday during an American Truck Dealers (ATD) webinar.
The event was kick off by Morgan Stanley’s Brad Stanek, CFP, financial advisor and executive director, who shared no matter how unique and distinctive business sales can be, all owners should enter the process with the same goal in mind.
“You want to maximize the value of your life’s work,” he said.
Stanek said the best way owners can do that is to acknowledge exiting is inevitable, and beginning planning for that day well ahead of its arrival. But he said far too many dealers fail to do that, which ultimately results in transactions where “owners are not fully satisfied by the outcome of their sale.”
[RELATED: Dealers continued to drive industry transactions in January]
As for what goes into a sale, Pat Albero, partner at Performance Brokerage Services, says most dealership evaluations are based on four components: real estate; fixed assets; net worth in a business; and ‘goodwill’ or ‘blue sky.’
