SmallBusinessNewz

Business owners contemplating retirement and fearful of their inability to afford retirement and its inherent costs, should seriously consider conducting a third party business valuation.  It is critical that they figure out what their business is worth and what the market could bear.  While it is obvious that most baby boomers will work beyond the typical retirement age of 65, a significant dynamic is looming on the horizon and that is the wave of "for sale" companies over the next 5-10 years.  It is projected that 70% of boomer owned businesses will be sold over the next 10 years due to retirement --- more than 3X the yearly national average!!  Business owners in this group should develop an exit plan answering basic questions such as:  when they want to sell? how much post tax income they require from the sale? & to whom do they want to sell?  If they wait to sell b/c of health issues, as the Wells Fargo study indicates, then they could be in dire straits and scrambling to exit likely reducing the purchase price (only 33% of businesses in the US are family-owned so a family successor is available to the minority) under less friendly deal terms.

If experts are correct about the wave of "for sale" companies, the supply (sellers) will exceed the demand (buyers) thus lowering market valuations of privately-held companies and reducing an owner's sales price.  Waiting too long to sell a business could actually be more problematic than this study leads one to believe.