Compass Report--The State of M&A

Maybe you did not sell in 1998, but would like to sell now. Your numbers are the same now as in the 1998 scenario shown. Except today you will be lucky to engage any competition at all. If you do, it will be between perhaps two or three somewhat ambivalent and distracted buyers. And, instead of six times EBITDA, you will get a best offer of only five times, or $9 million. When you subtract the $2.8 million in debt, your equity has shrunk from $8 million to $6.2 million—a decline of 23 percent.