If you are considering selling your North Carolina based business, a key metric you must understand is EBITDA – Earnings before Interest, Taxes Depreciation and Amortization. Buyers typically derive their initial value based on a multiple of the company’s EBITDA.
Ultimately, future cash flow determines value; and EBITDA is a proxy for that cash flow. When adjusted for owner related and one-off items, this measurement of the company’s earnings can give buyers an indicator of what the company may look like in their hands. EBITDA is important to buyers as it enables them to evaluate a company’s level of profitability without giving consideration to the capital structure and factors like tax planning and financing activities. Business owners can increase EBITDA, and provide a truer picture of the company’s earnings, by adjusting for one-time non-recurring expenses such as capital projects that were expensed, professional fees, above market owner compensation, and broader items like non-recurring components of research and development.
The process of deriving an adjusted EBITDA is called normalization and results in a recast income statement (and sometimes a recast balance sheet). There are two steps to this process. The first is adjusting the financial statements to assure compliance to GAAP (General Accepted Accounting Principles) and the second is establishing a list of add-backs. There are nuances and differences between tax accrual accounting and GAAP reporting that can have a significant impact of value, in both directions. Typical areas of concern deal with revenue recognition and year-end accruals. Understanding the adjustments to comply with GAAP usually requires a CPA that has an audit background and understands public accounting reporting.
If you are considering selling your business or pursuing an acquisition, consider partnering with an M&A advisor or investment banker that can work closely with you to prepare the business for sale and optimize the value beforehand. Experienced intermediaries will have recast financial statements and understand what types of add-backs can make a significant defensible impact on EBITDA and conversely know when to avoid adjustments that may actually jeopardize your claims of true cash flow.
Adjustments, or add-backs, have to be defensible for a buyer to accept them and use them to establish a value. In most cases, interested buyers will ask for a copy of the recast worksheet so that they can analyze the add-backs and map them to a final adjusted EBITDA number. If the numbers don’t seem plausible, you, the seller, will lose credibility, which can negatively impact value. That said, the act of recasting or adjusting your EBITDA to represent the most realistic picture of profitability under a new owner should not be a creative exercise.
With a defensible, sound adjusted EBITDA in hand, the question becomes ‘how does the buyer apply the multiple’? One of the primary factors in determining the multiple is the industry or nature of the business. For example: pure distribution companies that don’t add significant value can trade as low as three times adjusted EBITDA depending on the size of the business, whereas value-added distributors can trade much higher. Technology companies fetch much higher multiples and can oftentimes trade on revenue multiples due to the potential for high growth and high profits.
Strategic buyers tend to pay higher multiples of EBITDA because the acquisition has some synergy with their existing business and can be accretive; meaning that it can increase their earning per share. In a similar vein, a private equity group with a platform company seeking to acquire your business as an add-on, the investment is strategic in nature and may command a greater multiple than a standalone financial investment.
To maximize value in a sale transaction and move the multiple to the higher end of the range, it is important to present the true value of the company to a potential buyer – financial or strategic. To do this, explaining the strategic positioning, core capabilities, market differentiation, strength of your team, and growth opportunity of the business in a clear and succinct manner is of utmost importance. The combination of a growing a business, solid financial performance, good business practices and appropriate risk mitigation is likely to garner the optimal value.
So, remember EBITDA – the acronym that just may be the key to you maximizing the value of your company.
