The Business Transfer Newsletter

June 2014

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BUSINESS NEWS

What Does A Woman Really Want? | A New Study Provides The Answer ---> Her Own Business

The Value Of A Good Accountant & How To Find One

5 Critical Mistakes That Kill The Value Of Your Small Business

Own A C-Corp & Want To Sell Your Business? -- How To Minimize The Dreaded Double Tax

Private Equity Firms Have $1 Trillion Burning A Hole In Their Pockets -- But Investment Plums Are Few

Baby Boomers Own 67% Of All Small Businesses -- Will There Be Enough Buyers To Purchase Them

ARTICLES

Selling Texas Businesses

Since 1974

Selling Texas Companies Since 1974.

Our monthly newsletters provide information about buying or selling a business, current economic conditions, and highlight some of our newest business-for-sale opportunities. Our record of professionalism and reputation as a top firm in the nation has a lot to do with our people -- a knowledgeable long-term administrative staff and a very experienced team of professional brokers. We are headquartered in Houston and have offices in Austin.

Read our Archives, "The best library of articles about how to sell your business." - The New York Times

Businesses For Sale

Review All Listings Manufacturers For Sale

Wholesale / Distributors Service Businesses For Sale

Restaurants - Fast Food - Bars

* Featured Business Listing

* Featured Restaurant Listing

Planning To Sell In Three Or Four Years? --> Start Working On It Now

When getting ready to sell a house or a car, the first thing people do is clean it up and get rid of the clutter. It is not so different when selling a business. The process just has to begin much sooner.

Buyers look at the past three or four years of financial performance, so that is when the cleanup process should begin. Sellers need to look at what the future buyer will be looking for and organize appropriately. It is important to consider the following before deciding to sell:

Are you taking out too much compensation, travel, entertainment or other related expenses? -- This may save you money on income taxes, but buyers have a difficult time differentiating between what is required for business and what is excess. A buyer may agree to pay x-times, so an additional $100,000 of expenses could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in sale value. With excess expenses, your bottom line or net income is lower, which makes the profitability and the amount a buyer will pay lower.

If your business is an S corporation or LLC, consider taking out equity distributions that don't affect operating income. -- Equity distributions are taken out after profits that were already taxed. Since profits will be higher because of taking out equity distributions versus owner compensation, the business will be viewed to be more valuable. Earnings (amount of profit or after-tax net income) are only subject to income tax and not employment tax, which may also save money.

Read The Rest Of The Article Here..

Sold

Geometrix Hair Design

Pictured left to right: Marcia Bowron-CBB Broker,

Dee Hilton-Seller, Mandy Newslands-Buyer

Geometrix Hair Design, a popular upscale hair salon in Katy since 1985, was purchased by Mandy Newlands, a former hairstylist for the New Orleans Saints football team and a current grad student. Dee Hilton, the seller, sold the salon so she could take care of her aging parents. She will continue working as a stylist for the new owner as will the entire staff.

Marcia Bowron listed and sold the business.

Ask The Experts Question Ask The Experts

Question:

What are some of the strategic reasons why a big company might want to buy my business?

Answer:

1. To control their supply chain - In 2011, Starbucks announced it had acquired Evolution Fresh, one of their providers of juice drinks, for $30 million. Now Starbucks is no longer beholden to one of its suppliers.

2. To give their sales people something else in their briefcase -- Also in 2011, AOL announced the acquisition of The Huffington Post for $315 million, even though HuffPo had just turned its first modest profit on paper. AOL wanted to give its advertising sales people more inventory to sell and HuffPo had 26 million unique visitors a month.

3. To make their cash cow product look sexier -- Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion dollars even though Skype was losing money. The good folks in Redmond must have assumed they could sell more Windows, Office and Xbox by integrating Skype into everything they already sell.

4. To enter a new geographic market -- Herman Miller paid $50 million to acquire China's POSH Office Systems in order to get a beachhead into the world's fastest growing market for office furniture.

5. To get a hold of your employees -- Facebook reportedly acquired Internet start-up Hot Potato for $10 million, largely to get hold of the talented developers working at the company.

Texas Economic News

We watch economic and market conditions compared to the rest of the country because these factors affect business value. The following articles were all published since our last newsletter.

Houston No.1 For Fastest Growth In Foreign Visitors | Maybe We Need All Those New Hotels After All

Houston Is Among The Top 10 U.S. Cities With The Highest Percentage Of Green Commercial Space

Houston Is The Best City In The US For Manufacturing | It's The Place For New Industry - Forbes

Houston's Rice University On Top Of The World Again, Named No. 1 University Business Incubator

Houston's Economy Shows No Signs Of Slowing Down

There's Been A Ton Of M&A Activity In 2014

On May Jobs Numbers | Texas Sees Largest Year-To-Year Job Growth In Nearly 2 Decades

Texas Is No. 2 State For Bringing Home The Bacon

The Startup Scene In Is On Fire In Austin

More Small Businesses Are Being Sold | Why? More Buyers Are On The Hunt

Middle Market M&A Is Surging | Are Company Owners Prepared? -- Forbes

Texas Boasts Fastest Growing Fortune 500 Companies In America

Half Of The Fortune 500 Companies In Texas Are In Houston | Only New York City Has More