MergerPlace and ListingsGiant are currently offering GABB members listing service
The GABB Board wants to let membership know of the following opportunity. The GABB Board does not endorse this company, but some brokers may find it useful to their practice.
Thank you, Matt Slappey, GABB President
Click on the picture of the flier to see the opportunity that MergerPlace and ListingsGiant are currently offering GABB members.
The flier outlines the specifics of this offer. GABB members will have the opportunity to advertise your businesses for sale listings on our sites for just $9/95/mth for 6 months. This includes free broker memberships which will allow you to advertise an unlimited number of listings.
This is a great and inexpensive way for you to generate leads.
Please contact me directly if you have further questions.
Many Thanks,
Ashley Gooding, agooding@sunbeltnetwork.com
MergerPlace/ListingsGiant Broker Sales, 216-674-0645 x42
Read MoreGABB Fall Conference Tuesday; Business TV founder to speak to GABB Oct. 29
GABB Conference Tuesday instead of Regular Meeting
A reminder that the Georgia Association of Business Brokers will NOT meet as usual on Tuesday, because the regular meeting will be replaced by the Georgia Association of Business Brokers Fall Educational Conference, featuring two IBBA Classes, excellent instructors, and six hours of GREC CE credit, eight hours of IBBA credit. If you have NOT registered, we do have a small number of spaces available on a first-come, first-served basis.
The conference will be held from 8:00 through 5:00 on Tuesday, Sept 24, at Atlanta REALTORS, 5784 Lake Forrest Drive, Atlanta GA 30328. In the morning session, from 8-noon, Walt Lipski, co-founder of Capital Advice, LLc, an investment banking firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, will guide students through the Balance Sheet – A Uniquely Powerful Closing Tool. (note, this is a change from what was previously announced). In the afternoon, John Willems from the Law Office of John Willems in Dallas, Texas, will teach Legal Issues in the M&A Process, on the highly collaborative process of guiding a business and its owners through an M&A transaction.
BusinessTV Channel’s Ruth King slated to speak to GABB Oct. 29
GABB members and guests won’t want to miss the next regular meeting on Oct. 29, when our guest speaker is expected to be Ruth King, founder and CEO of Ribbon, an interactive business videocasting service. King is a seasoned entrepreneur, who over the past 25 years has owned seven businesses. Her first business, Business Ventures Corporation, began operations in 1981. Through Business Ventures Corporation, she travels throughout the United States coaching, training, and helping small businesses achieve the business goals they want to achieve.
After twelve years on the road, doing 200 flights per year, she knew there had to be a better way to reach business people who wanted to build their businesses and train their employees. Her husband came up with the technology. As a result HVACChannel.tv began broadcasting in March, 2002. BusinessTVChannel.com began broadcasting in January, 2005. Other channels quickly followed. Ribbon, the first Internet Broadcasting Network, was born.
BusinessTVChannel.com is one of four companies that Ruth currently is an owner/partner in. She has been involved with many different businesses over the years with a wide range of interests including music, video graphic production, healthy house products, and t-shirts.
Ruth is passionate about helping adults learn to read, photography, and marathon races. She helped start an adult literacy organization in 1986 that currently serves over 1,000 adults per year and ran the Boston Marathon in April, 2004 and April, 2005.Ruth holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University and University of Pennsylvania, respectively. She also holds an MBA in finance from Georgia State University.
Breakfast with the Brokers
We invite you and a colleague to enjoy a light breakfast and coffee with the Georgia Association of Business Brokers, where you’ll meet the state’s experts in buying and selling businesses and franchises. The networking starts at 9:45 a.m., and the monthly meeting starts at 10:30 a.m. at the South Terraces Conference Center, 115 Perimeter Center Place, Atlanta, GA, 30346.
The Georgia Association of Business Brokers (GABB) is the state’s only professional organization dedicated to buying and selling businesses and franchises.An experienced GABB business broker can help a buyer find businesses for sale, negotiate a fair price and obtain financing. A broker can help an owner evaluate and price a business, market and advertise to prospective buyers, negotiate and close a deal. The GABB Web site lists hundreds of businesses for sale throughout Georgia, as well as around the country.
The GABB meets on the last Tuesday of every month except December.
You are receiving this because you have expressed an interest in the GABB in the past. If you do not wish to receive any mailings from the GABB, please contact dloupe@mindspring.com
Read MoreCompany Weaknesses
Take two seemingly identical companies with very similar financials, but one of the companies was worth substantially more than the other company. One company will sell for $10 million “as is” or some changes can be made and the same company can be sold for $15 million. Following is a partial list of potential company weaknesses to consider in order to assess a company’s vulnerability.
Customer Concentration: First, one has to analyze the situation. The U.S. Government might be considered one customer but from ten different purchasing agents. Or, GM might have one purchasing agent but be directed to ten different plants. One office product manufacturer with $20 million in sales had 75% of its business with one customer…Staples. They had three choices: 1. Cross their fingers and remain the same; 2. Acquire another company with a different customer base; or 3. Sell out to another company. They selected the third choice and took their chips off the table. The acquirer was a $125 million competitor which was unable to sell to Staples, so after absorbing the smaller company, the customer concentration to Staples was only about 10% ($125m + $20m=$145m of which $15 million was sold to Staples or 10+%).
Single Product: Perhaps the most famous example of a single product acquisition is when General Motors overtook Ford’s single product, the Model A, with Alfred Sloan’s brilliant concept of a different model for people with different financial thresholds. Henry Ford’s stubbornness to stay with one product (Model A) almost cost the company its existence.
Regional Sales/Limited Marketing: Companies with parochial focus have limited capabilities to grow other than within their own domain. A widget company with national and international sales has substantially greater prospects to grow than one limited to its own region.
Aging Workforce/Decaying Culture: Skilled workers in certain trades, such as tool and die shops, are not being replaced by the younger generation. This is a sign that the next generation will not provide the companies with a skilled workforce in certain industries.
Declining Industry: Some companies are agile enough to completely change their industry, such as Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway and Fashion Neckwear Company which completely changed from neckties to polo shirts.
Pricing Constraints/Rising Costs: Companies who sell a commodity product often lack pricing elasticity and are unable to pass on their increased costs to their customers. For a while, the steel industry was in this predicament, but through massive industry consolidation and a booming demand from China, the situation changed.
CEO Dependency/No Succession Plan: Many middle market companies have successfully been built up by the founder/entrepreneur/owner and some critics call these individuals a “one-man-band” for good reason. These superman types tend to dominate most aspects of the company, but this is no way to build a sustainable business long term. Furthermore, these CEOs usually have not created a succession plan.
Maximizing Value
If the owners of a company, many of whom may be outsiders, want to increase the value of their investment, they should, through the Board of Directors, try to overcome the company’s weaknesses. On the other hand, the CEO may not be either capable or motivated to do so. The alternative is to implement a CEO succession plan, preferably with the cooperation of the current CEO. Kenneth Freeman’s thesis in “The CEO’s Real Legacy” (Harvard Business Review, Nov 2004) is that the CEO’s real legacy is implementing a succession plan.
Freeman advises:
“Your true legacy as a CEO is what happens to the company after you leave the corner office.
“Begin early, look first inside your company for exceptional talent, see that candidates gain experience in all aspects of the business, help them develop the skills they’ll need in the top job…
“During good times, most boards simply don’t want to talk about CEO succession…During bad times when the board is ready to fire the CEO, it’s too late to talk about a plan for smoothly passing the baton…Succession planning is one of the best ways for you to ensure the long-term health of your company.”
Both buyers and sellers should assess the company’s weaknesses. While some weaknesses are difficult to overcome, especially in the short term, one potential weakness that is very easy to overcome is to implement a succession plan…especially during the company’s good times before things go bad and it’s too late.
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