Acquivo reading library
Understanding business valuation
A value range is useful only when its inputs and assumptions are clear. Explore the earnings record, buyer context, and questions to take to qualified financial professionals before relying on a number in a sale process.
Published guides
How Is a Private Business Valued Before a Sale?
Learn how income, market, and asset-based methods value a private business before a sale, and why an estimated range differs from a negotiated transaction price.
For Business OwnersWhich EBITDA Multiple Is Appropriate for My Business?
Learn how to build a defensible EBITDA multiple range by matching comparable transactions, normalizing EBITDA, and adjusting for company-specific risk instead of copying a headline average.
For Business OwnersHow Do I Calculate Adjusted EBITDA Before Selling My Business?
Learn how to reconcile reported earnings to adjusted EBITDA before a sale, separate accounting adjustments from discretionary addbacks, and prepare a traceable schedule a buyer can review.
For Business OwnersWhich EBITDA Addbacks Will Buyers Accept?
Learn how to evaluate EBITDA addbacks using recurrence, business necessity, documentation, and replacement costs, then prepare a buyer-ready normalization schedule.
For Business OwnersHow Do Enterprise Value and Equity Value Differ in a Business Sale?
Understand the bridge from enterprise value to equity value, including debt, cash, transaction adjustments, and why the amount owners receive can still differ from equity value.
For Business OwnersHow Does Customer Concentration Affect Business Valuation?
Learn how buyers assess customer concentration through revenue and profit exposure, contract durability, retention history, and the consequences of losing a key account.
For Business OwnersHow Does Owner Dependency Affect Business Valuation?
Owner dependency can affect value when customers, decisions, relationships, or operating knowledge do not transfer cleanly to a buyer. Learn how to assess the risk and prepare evidence.
For Business OwnersWhat Does a Quality of Earnings Report Reveal About Business Value?
Learn what a quality of earnings report can uncover about sustainable profit, cash conversion, risk, and the assumptions buyers use when valuing a private business.
For Business OwnersHow Do I Build Financial Projections That Support a Defensible Valuation?
Build defensible business projections by linking operating drivers to margins, staffing, working capital, cash, and transparent valuation scenarios.
For Business OwnersHow Does a Working Capital Target Affect the Value I Receive at Closing?
Learn how a negotiated working capital target, normalized operating balances, seasonality, and closing calculations can change proceeds in a business sale.
For Business OwnersHow Should Owner Compensation Be Normalized for a Business Valuation?
A practical framework for replacing owner and family-employee work with supportable market costs when assessing sustainable earnings for a business valuation.
For Business OwnersHow Do Related-Party Rent and Owned Real Estate Affect Business Valuation?
A practical guide to separating operating-company earnings, related-party rent, owned real estate, and transaction scope when valuing a private business.
For Business OwnersWhich Earnings Period Should Be Used to Value My Business?
Learn when to use historical, trailing-twelve-months, or forward earnings in a business valuation, and how to check seasonality, reporting lag, and consistency with the selected multiple.
For Business OwnersHow Do Buyers Value a Business After a Recent Earnings Spike or Decline?
Learn how buyers test whether a recent earnings spike or decline reflects durable operating performance, a temporary event, or a normalization issue before valuing a business.
For Business OwnersHow Do Cash Conversion and Capital Expenditures Affect Business Valuation?
Learn how operating cash conversion, working capital, maintenance capex, and growth capex can change the cash a buyer must fund and the value a business can support.
For Business OwnersHow Does Recurring Revenue Affect a Private Company's Valuation?
Understand when recurring revenue strengthens a private-company valuation and how to test contracts, renewals, margins, concentration, transferability, and risk.
For Business OwnersHow Do Business Size and Earnings Scale Affect Valuation Multiples?
Learn why earnings scale can change valuation multiples by affecting risk, cash-flow quality, financing capacity, and the buyer universe, without treating size as an automatic premium.
For Business OwnersWhich Liabilities Do Buyers Treat as Debt-Like in a Business Valuation?
A practical guide to unpaid taxes, bonuses, deferred obligations, and other liabilities that may affect equity value, with a focus on transaction definitions and double-counting controls.
For Business OwnersHow Can Accounting Policies Change the EBITDA Buyers Use for Valuation?
Learn how revenue recognition, accrual cutoff, inventory costing, and EBITDA adjustments can change the earnings baseline used in a business sale, and how to document a consistent reconciliation.
For Business OwnersHow Is a Business With Little or No EBITDA Valued?
Learn how to value a business with minimal, negative, or temporarily depressed EBITDA by testing assets, revenue evidence, normalized results, and future cash flows.
For Business OwnersHow Do Buyer Synergies Affect the Value of My Business?
Learn how to separate standalone business value from buyer-specific cost and revenue synergies, account for execution risk, and avoid giving away all potential upside.
For Business OwnersHow Do Buyers Evaluate Backlog When Valuing a Business?
Backlog can support revenue visibility, but buyers usually test its enforceability, timing, margins, delivery capacity, and conversion history before giving it valuation weight.
For Business OwnersHow Should a Business With Multiple Divisions Be Valued?
Learn when to value a multi-division company as one business or use a sum-of-the-parts analysis, including shared overhead, intercompany activity, and separation costs.
For Business OwnersHow Should I Value Earnouts and Rollover Equity in a Sale Offer?
A practical framework for comparing earnouts and rollover equity with closing cash using payment conditions, timing, governance, liquidity, and downside scenarios.
For Business OwnersHow Do I Compare Valuation Indications From Different Buyers?
A practical framework for comparing buyer valuation indications by normalizing earnings, transaction perimeter, consideration, and price adjustments before ranking proposals.
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