A New Year with New Opportunities

With the passing of 2009, most are welcoming 2010 with open arms as we climb out of one of the worst recessions in our time. While there was an overall slowdown of business owners looking to sell in 2009, there was still a healthy level of interest on the buying side with many buyers looking to take advantage of the internet business opportunities that have been hit by the recession. Unfortunately there were very few businesses that were "recession proof" because of the ripple effects a recession has on the economy as a whole. Those who were looking to sell fortunately found our firm by typing in keywords such as "selling domain name, selling web site, sell internet company", etc. instead of settling for a traditional business broker. With the clients we worked with in 2009, most of the small business owners had seen a huge increase in growth in 2008 compared with 2007, but setting the bar so high means it would be tough to come close to 2008's numbers in 2009 for most. An overwhelming majority of the businesses we represented in mid 2009 saw a significant downturn in revenues compared with 2008 with the retail sector suffering the worst as there is generally a great deal of seasonality with those businesses. Combining that with the fact that some clients only had 2 quarters of 2009 performance to go off of and of course those numbers were drastically down from the first 6 months in 2008. Despite our warnings about selling for a lower multiple than usual, most business owners who sold in 2009 did so because they needed the money and were willing to take the hit on their valuation. Similar to anyone who sold a home in 2009, almost all probably had to because they needed the money and unfortunately it came at a time when it was probably the worst year in awhile to try and sell a house. However, with the economy on the rebound for 2010, there will definitely be some great opportunities out there from business owners who preferred to wait out the storm in 2009 before putting their business on the market.