BATNA: What you need to know

In a closely held business, ownership always means far more than business value. Valuing your business will put a dollar figure on your business (and with any luck, it might even be accurate!). However, ownership of a business is about much more than the “number.” To many of our clients, ownership is about identity, personal fulfillment, developing a legacy, funding their lifestyle, and much more. What does business ownership mean to you? In our final article in this series, we are going to look at questions around what ownership means to different people, explore how to increase business value and liquidity, and discuss the decision of whether to grow your business or exit—and which liquidity options are available for each path. 

While it may seem counterintuitive, we find that it is best to delay the decision to grow or exit until the very end of the value acceleration process. After identifying and implementing business improvement and de-risking projects in the Discover stage and the Prepare stage (see below), people may find themselves more open to the idea of keeping their business and using that business to build liquidity while they explore other options. 

Once people have completed the Discover and Prepare stages and are ready to decide whether to exit or grow their business, we frame the conversation around personal and business readiness. Many personal readiness factors relate to what ownership means to each client. In this process, clients ask themselves the following questions:

• Am I ready to not be in charge?
• Am I ready to not be identified as the business?
• Do I have a plan for what comes next?
• Do I have the resources to fund what’s next? 
• Have I communicated my plan?

On the business end, readiness topics include the following:

• Is the team in place to carry on without me?
• Do all employees know their role?
• Does the team know the strategic plan?
• Have we minimized risk? 
• Have I communicated my plan?

Whether you choose to grow your business or exit it, you have various liquidity options to choose from. Liquidity options if you keep your business include 401(k) profit sharing, distributions, bonuses, and dividend recapitalization. Alternatively, liquidity options if you choose to exit your business include selling to strategic buyers, ESOPs, private equity firms, management, or family. 

When it comes to liquidity, there are several other topics clients are curious about. One of these topics is the use of earn-outs in the sale of a business. In an earn-out, a portion of the price of the business is suspended, contingent on business performance. The “short and sweet” on this topic is that we typically find them to be most effective over a two- to three-year time period. When selecting a metric to base the earn-out on (such as revenue, profit, or customer retention), consider what is in your control. Will the new owner change the capital structure or cost structure in a way that reduces income? Further, if the planned liquidity event involves merging your company into another company, specify how costs will be allocated for earn-out purposes. 

Rollover equity (receiving equity in the acquiring company as part of the deal structure) and the use of warrants/synthetic equity (incentives tied to increases in stock price) is another area in which we receive many questions from clients. Some key considerations:

• Make sure you know how you will turn your rollover equity into cash.
• Understand potential dilution of your rollover equity if the acquiring company continues to acquire other targets. 
• Make sure the percentage of equity relative to total deal consideration is reasonable.
• Seller financing typically has lower interest rates and favorable terms, so warrants are often attached to compensate the seller. 
• Warrants are subject to capital gains tax while synthetic equity is typically ordinary income. As a result, warrants often have lower tax consequences.
• Synthetic equity may work well for long-term incentive plans and for management buyouts. 

We have found that through the value acceleration process, clients are able to increase business value and liquidity, giving them control over how they spend their time and resources.

If you are interested in learning more about value acceleration, please contact the business valuation services team. We would be happy to meet with you, answer any questions you may have, and provide you with information on upcoming value acceleration presentations. 

So far in our value acceleration article series, we have talked about increasing the value of your business and building liquidity into your life starting with taking inventory of where you are at and aligning values, reducing risk, and increasing intangible value.

In this article, we are going to focus on planning and execution. How these action items are introduced and executed may be just as important as the action items themselves. We still need to protect value before we can help it grow. Let’s say you had a plan, a good plan, to sell your business and start a new one. Maybe a bed-and-breakfast on the coast? You’ve earmarked the 70% in cash proceeds to bolster your retirement accounts. The remaining 30% was designed to generate cash for the down payment on the bed-and-breakfast. And it is stuck in escrow or, worse yet, tied to an earn-out. Now, the waiting begins. When do you get to move on to the next phase? After all that hard work in the value acceleration process, you still didn’t get where you wanted to go. What went wrong?

Many business owners stumble at the end because they lack a master plan that incorporates their business action items and personal action items. Planning and execution in the value acceleration process was the focus of our conversation with a group of business owners and advisors on Thursday, April 11th.

Business valuation master plan steps to take

A master plan should include both business actions and personal actions. We uncovered a number of points that resonated with business owners in the room. Almost every business owner has some sort of action item related to employees, whether it’s hiring new employees, advancing employees into new roles, or helping employees succeed in their current roles. A review of financial practices may also benefit many businesses. For example, by revisiting variable vs. fixed costs, companies may improve their bidding process and enhance profitability. 

Master plan business improvement action items:

• Customer diversification and contract implementation
• Inventory management
• Use of relevant metrics and dashboards
• Financial history and projections
• Systems and process refinement

A comprehensive master plan should also include personal action items. Personal goals and objectives play a huge role in the actions taken by a business. As with the hypothetical bed-and-breakfast example, personal goals may influence your exit options and the selected deal structure. 

Master plan personal action items:

•  Family involvement in the business
•  Needs vs. wants
•  Development of an advisory team
•  Life after planning

A master plan incorporates all of the previously identified action items into an implementation timeline. Each master plan is different and reflects the underlying realities of the specific business. However, a practical framework to use as guidance is presented below.

The value acceleration process requires critical thinking and hard work. Just as important as identifying action items is creating a process to execute them effectively. Through proper planning and execution, we help our clients not only become wealthier but to use their wealth to better their lives. 

If you are interested in learning more about value acceleration, please contact the business valuation services team. We would be happy to meet with you, answer any questions you may have, and provide you with information on upcoming value acceleration presentations. 

What are the top three areas of improvement right now for your business? In this third article of our series, we will focus on how to increase business value by aligning values, decreasing risk, and improving what we call the “four C’s”: human capital, structural capital, social capital, and consumer capital.

To back up for a minute, value acceleration is the process of helping clients increase the value of their business and build liquidity into their lives. Previously, we looked at the Discover stage, in which business owners take inventory of their personal, financial, and business goals and assemble information into a prioritized action plan. Here, we are going to focus on the Prepare stage of the value acceleration process.

Aligning values may sound like an abstract concept, but it has a real world impact on business performance and profitability. For example, if a business has multiple owners with different future plans, the company can be pulled in two competing directions. Another example of poor alignment would be if a shareholder’s business plans (such as expanding the asset base to drive revenue) compete with personal plans (such as pulling money out of the business to fund retirement). Friction creates problems. The first step in the Prepare stage is therefore to reduce friction by aligning values.

Reducing risk

Personal risk creates business risk, and business risk creates personal risk. For example, if a business owner suddenly needs cash to fund unexpected medical bills, planned business expansion may be delayed to provide liquidity to the owner. If a key employee unexpectedly quits, the business owner may have to carve time away from their personal life to juggle new responsibilities. 

Business owners should therefore seek to reduce risk in their personal lives, (e.g., life insurance, use of wills, time management planning) and in their business, (e.g., employee contracts, customer contracts, supplier and customer diversification).

Intangible value and the four C's

Now more than ever, the value of a business is driven by intangible value rather than tangible asset value. One study found that intangible asset value made up 87% of S&P 500 market value in 2015 (up from 17% in 1975). Therefore, we look at how to increase business value by increasing intangible asset value and, specifically, the four C’s of intangible asset value: human capital, structural capital, social capital, and consumer capital. 

Here are two ways you can increase intangible asset value. First of all, do a cost-benefit analysis before implementing any strategies to boost intangible asset value. Second, to avoid employee burnout, break planned improvements into 90-day increments with specific targets.

At BerryDunn, we often diagram company performance on the underlying drivers of the 4 C’s (below). We use this tool to identify and assess the areas for greatest potential improvements:

By aligning values, decreasing risk, and improving the four C’s, business owners can achieve a spike in cash flow and business value, and obtain liquidity to fund their plans outside of their business.

If you are interested in learning more about value acceleration, please contact the business valuation services team. We would be happy to meet with you, answer any questions you may have, and provide you with information on upcoming value acceleration presentations.

This is our second of five articles addressing the many aspects of business valuation. In the first article, we presented an overview of the three stages of the value acceleration process (Discover, Prepare, and Decide). In this article we are going to look more closely at the Discover stage of the process.

In the Discover stage, business owners take inventory of their personal, financial, and business goals, noting ways to increase alignment and reduce risk. The objective of the Discover stage is to gather data and assemble information into a prioritized action plan, using the following general framework.

Every client we have talked to so far has plans and priorities outside of their business. Accordingly, the first topic in the Discover stage is to explore your personal plans and how they may affect business goals and operations. What do you want to do next in your personal life? How will you get it done?

Another area to explore is your personal financial plan, and how this interacts with your personal goals and business plans. What do you currently have? How much do you need to fund your other goals?

The third leg of the value acceleration “three-legged stool” is business goals. How much can the business contribute to your other goals? How much do you need from your business? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business? How do these compare to other businesses? How can business value be enhanced? A business valuation can help you to answer these questions.

A business valuation can clarify the standing of your business regarding the qualities buyers find attractive. Relevant business attractiveness factors include the following:

• Market factors, such as barriers to entry, competitive advantages, market leadership, economic prosperity, and market growth
• Forecast factors, such as potential profit and revenue growth, revenue stream predictability, and whether or not revenue comes from recurring sources
• Business factors, such as years of operation, management strength, customer loyalty, branding, customer database, intellectual property/technology, staff contracts, location, business owner reliance, marketing systems, and business systems

Your company’s performance in these areas may lead to a gap between what your business is worth and what it could be worth. Armed with the information from this assessment, you can prepare a plan to address this “value gap” and look toward your plans for the future.

If you are interested in learning more about value acceleration, please contact the business valuation services team. We would be happy to meet with you, answer any questions you may have, and provide you with information on upcoming value acceleration presentations.

Next up in our value acceleration series is all about what we call the four C's of the value acceleration process. 

This is the first article in our five-article series that reviews the art and science of business valuation. The series is based on an in-person program we offer from time to time.  

Did you know that just 12 months after selling, three out of four business owners surveyed “profoundly regretted” their decision? Situations like these highlight the importance of the value acceleration process, which focuses on increasing value and aligning business, personal, and financial goals. Through this process, business owners will be better prepared for business transitions, and therefore be significantly more satisfied with their decisions.

Here is a high-level overview of the value acceleration process. This process has three stages, diagrammed here:

The Discover stage is also called the “triggering event.” This is where business owners take inventory of their situation, focusing on risk reduction and alignment of their business, personal, and financial goals. The information gleaned in this stage is then compiled into a prioritized action plan utilized in future stages.

In the Prepare stage, business owners follow through on business improvement and personal/financial planning action items formed in the discover stage. Examples of action items include the following:

• Addressing weaknesses identified in the Discover stage, in the business, or in personal financial planning
• Protecting value through planning documents and making sure appropriate insurance is in place
• Analyzing and prioritizing projects to improve the value of the business, as identified in Discover stage
• Developing strategies to increase liquidity and retirement savings

The last stage in the process is the Decide stage. At this point, business owners choose between continuing to drive additional value into the business or to sell it.

Through the value acceleration process, we help business owners build value into their businesses and liquidity into their lives.

If you are interested in learning more about value acceleration, please contact the business valuation services team. We would be happy to meet with you, answer any questions you may have, and provide you with information on upcoming value acceleration presentations.

Read more! In our next installment of the value acceleration blog series, we cover the Discover stage.

Read this if you are a business owner.

While recent articles within the exit planning community have noted a slowing of business transitions and exits, during times of uncertainty it may be even more important to focus on the opportunity at hand. Rather than waiting it out, we recommend that business owners try to be active, involved, and focus their efforts on improving their business.

The situation is similar to the ebb and flow of the tide. The current economy is the tide at an extreme low point. We know that the economy will recover, so what can be done in the meantime to take advantage of opportunities, and be ready to succeed when the tide rises?

Changing of tides

Suddenly, there has been a rapid and seismic shift in the landscape. Weaknesses and threats, rocks and hazards, may have emerged. How you choose to approach these perils will make a difference in the long term. Will you take the opportunity to discover, identify, assess, shore up, and mitigate these elements?

It is important to view this current state in the context of the larger, long-term perspective. Once the tide comes back, will you be able to set full sail ahead having built resiliency, redundancy, and strength into those areas while you had the opportunity? While the water is low, it presents a great opportunity for business owners to discover and understand: 

• What broke first and why? 
• How can you shore it up for better operations in the days ahead?
• What weak spots you didn’t know about are now apparent?
• How can you address those weaknesses?
• How can you leverage existing resources differently to chart a path forward?

Models of priority

There are various stages or hierarchies of priority in thinking about the progress of a business. 

Each priority model features bases and pinnacles. The pinnacles of each model are realized in a long-term setting, after the remaining bases have been solidified. While continued development of a clear vision for your business is paramount, dynamic shifts in the landscape call for reassessment of the bases. In the long-term, self-fulfillment manifests from properly executed strategy, but in the near- and mid-term, these various frameworks force strategic planning back to assess and address the base components. 

The bases of each model should serve as safe havens for reversion. When facing uncertainty and failure, have you made your base strong enough to redirect your efforts in an actionable plan for the long-term?

Action Planning Pyramid and Value Maturity Index

The Value Maturity Index, broken into five stages is a stepwise assessment of active exit and business strategy. Inherent in the value acceleration framework are the concepts of resiliency, redundancy, disaster recover, and actionable planning.

While we may have been fully entrenched in the build phase, setbacks due to dynamic changes in the landscape force us back to protect mode—the assessment and methodical shoring up of weaker points of the operation to protect against future downside risks.

Though this stepwise progression is linear in nature, keep in mind that flexibility and adaptability are paramount in changing course to address needs of your current state.

When we look at action planning, parallels can be drawn to the various models. Certainly, we are focused on continuing sales, marketing, and customer relationships, but it becomes a question of reversion to meeting the basic needs and serving client’s pain points rather than  beginning ground-breaking efforts. 

The current climate forces us to the base, with a focus on solidifying the exposed areas that may have been made apparent, and likely compounded, by the current realities. Concerns on management, metrics, core values, and priorities serve as the bases in need of coverage.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs¹ is a well-known motivational theory in psychology that comprises a five-tiered model of human needs, whereby each successive tier must be fulfilled (beginning at the base) before rising to the next tier. It can be used to view similar information from a psychological perspective.

Value acceleration and creating successful outcomes are largely tied to a clear long-term vision. We typically reside in the Self-actualization level of the hierarchy of needs when undertaking the high-level view of the framework.

Based on the adaptability and call for sudden directional changes in today’s climate, we are not as concerned with these top levels. We have them in our back pocket for easy recall, but they are not the pressing issue staring us in the face.

If we think about shoring up bases (the Protect Stage), in considering this psychological model, our focus is on the “basic needs” level. That is, keeping people (self, family, and employees) safe and remaining connected for immediate continuity.

McKinsey & Company Event Horizons

Many others in related fields are viewing the current situation in similar terms. In the McKinsey & Company Events Horizon view²:

• Resolve addresses those immediate hurdles and challenges a business is currently facing.
• Resilience focuses on near-term items to be addressed once the initial base is covered. 
• Return views the mid-term horizon in understanding how to return to scale by focusing on understanding metrics and increasing the frequency of measurements for informed decision making. 
• Reimagination and Reform typically go hand in hand, but without covering bases of needs, crafting a dynamic shift in operations to incorporate new environments may be counterproductive. 

However, once these bases have been clearly assessed and addressed, the path forward may appear dramatically different, in which case creative solutions to enhance opportunity should begin to form. Examples of this may include newly emerged revenue streams and opportunity areas, fully integrated systems and dashboards to capture timely decision making data points, or pivots in your business model adaptable and reactive to new environments.

One example that has been in the news recently involves CEOs being pleasantly surprised that productivity of employees has not dropped even though people are working from home. How sustainable is this productivity? What implications might this have for corporate real estate and office settings? The answers will vary widely, depending on your business and competitive environment.

Exposure, discover, and control

Back to our tides analogy for a moment. As the water receded, what new rocks were exposed or what existing challenges became more apparent? What is your plan to address these areas? Is this the time to make large investments in your company or the right investments? Now that the tide is out, it is time to shore up, move the rocks, and address elements of your business to prepare for long-term successes. Through our assessments, risk profiling, and benchmarking analyses, we help business owners discover the largest gaps across the company, prioritize the most impactful problem areas to address, and implement changes to enhance business value through continuous improvement. 

Taking stock of your company’s future through the incorporation of lessons learned will bolster value in the long-term by de-risking and developing new opportunities, methods, work, shifts in productivity, and shifts in mentality. That approach also brings lots of questions: If there are no early warning signs, why not? What should your indicators be? What metrics are crucial in identifying the pulse of your current situation? What is your business reliant on? How can you build information and indicators for rapid shifts in decision making? How strong are your current controls and how integrated are your management and information systems?

To answer these questions, you need to quantify and develop metrics that will aid in the early identification of future challenges, thus increasing your responsiveness with data-driven decision mechanisms. Having your fingers on the pulse of your company and understanding the impact of each input to your strategy will focus your attention on the information that matters most. This allows you to understand, position, and adapt to changes in your business and community environment in a proactive and agile manner. Measurements, forecasts, and dashboards should provide you with regular, valid, and relevant information you can use to take informed action in decision making.

Historical look backs during various points of time will allow you to key in on pivotal data indicators and inflection points. When looking at this from an operational view, industry and economic factors impacting your company can serve as corroborating pieces of evidence to further support data metrics analyzed.

As you perform look backs, it is also best practice to regularly study and update development, pipeline, and reliance metrics for feedback and information discovery with data integrated throughout your operations. This helps avoid lag time in reporting on stale information towards real-time actionable data points.  

Each metric is specific to your business and can be directly mapped back to increases in shareholder value. Understanding these drivers of business value will focus your attention and intention on improving in the right areas, while avoiding distracting and less impactful pain points.

Don’t fret over precision, rather build in flexibility and adaptability with scenario- and sensitivity-based criterion to understand changes, implications, and reliance of each input. Understanding these relationships in a broader scheme aid you in quick, impactful decision making guiding you towards enhanced value.

Resilience until the tides rise

This approach allows opportunity to fully assess the known and unknown problem areas, weaknesses, perils, and hazards your business may be facing. From that base you can begin to address these issues to scale effectively with lower overall risk when activity picks up.

Management metrics, core values, and priorities drive resilience for long-term continuity by shoring up the foundation to build for the future. Assembling evidence in troubled times provides opportunity to capitalize on and fulfill core values. Documenting these decisions and improvements memorialize your decision making, impact on value enhancement, and should serve as a playbook for future events.

What you make of the time you have now through identification, assessment, and addressing newly emerged risk areas provides the opportunity to increase success once the economy rebounds. We are here to help. If you have questions about your particular situation, or would like more information, please contact the business valuation consulting team. 

¹Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Saul McLeod, updated March 20, 2020. SimplyPsychology. www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html.
²Beyond coronavirus: The path to the next normal, Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal, McKinsey & Company, March 23, 2020.  www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/beyond-coronavirus-the-path-to-the-next-normal. COVID-19: Briefing note, March 30, 2020, Our latest perspectives on the coronavirus pandemic. Matt Craven, Mihir Mysore, Shubham Singhal, Sven Smit, and Matt Wilson. McKinsey & Company. www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/covid-19-implications-for-business.

Read this if you want more information about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Most likely you have heard of the PPP within the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act that was passed into law March 27, 2020. Below, we’ve shared some of the questions we have heard from many of our clients. If you need more information or have questions regarding your specific question, please contact us. 

Question #1: What was the PPP designed for? 
Answer: The PPP was designed with the goal of keeping American workers paid and employed. It aims to accomplish this by issuing loans to qualified businesses so that they can continue paying employees and other qualified expenses.

Question #2: Do you or your business qualify for this? 
Answer: There are several considerations when determining whether or not a business qualifies. For more information, see this recent blog post from Seth Webber, which address a number of these considerations. 

Question #3: What should the PPP loan be used to cover in your business?
Answer: The intent of allowable uses includes: (i) payroll costs, including (a) employee salaries, commissions, or similar compensations, (b) group health care benefits, (c) paid vacation, parental, sick, medical, or family leave, (d) allowances for dismissal or separation, (e) retirement benefits, and (f) state or local tax assessed on the compensation on employee;  (ii) payments of interest on any mortgage obligation, but not prepayment or payment of principal amounts; (ii) rent (including rent under a lease agreement); (iv) utilities; and (v) interest on any other debt obligations incurred before February 15, 2020. However, certain payroll costs are excluded, including salaries and wages which annualized amounts would result in compensation over $100,000 and sick and family leave wages for which a credit is allowed under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.  

Additionally, you should consider the time period your allowable expenses are designated for. The Small Business Administration (SBA), in consultation with the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) issued a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and responses to these FAQs as of April 10, 2020, Paycheck Protection Program Loans FAQs. Within these FAQs, Question 20 asked, “The amount of forgiveness of a PPP loan depends on the borrower’s payroll costs over an eight-week period; when does that eight-week period begin?” The SBA and Treasury noted, “The eight-week period begins on the date the lender makes the first disbursement of the PPP loan to the borrower. The lender must make the first disbursement of the loan no later than ten (10) calendar days from the date of loan approval.” 

Question #4: What portion of the loan, if any, can be forgiven?
Answer: The Treasury Department issued guidance on March 31, 2020 indicating that at least 75% of the forgiven amount should be used for qualified payroll costs. Although the covered period is specified as February 15, 2020 through June 30, 2020, forgiveness amounts of the loan are based on expenses (primarily payroll) during the eight-week period following the receipt of the loan. There are other aspects of the forgiveness provisions that impact the actual amount forgiven, including maintaining or quickly rehiring employees and maintaining salary levels, with the overall forgiveness amount being reduced if full-time headcount declines, or if salaries and wages decrease more than 25%.

Question #5: What about the portion of your loan that is not forgiven?
Answer: For the portion of loan not forgiven, the life and terms of the residual loan appear favorable. Current guidance indicates a repayment period of two year loan at 1% interest. Included within this is a six-month deferral period on principal repayment. The loan does not require collateral or a personal guarantee.

Question #6: How should you keep track of the funding and allowable costs?
Answer: Best practice would be to set up a separate banking account. This will allow you to bifurcate the funding source and offset that amount by costs tracked over the covered period directly. This allows you to use other cash reserves and funding sources to meet other expense needs during the covered period. The funds need to be brought over (into that separate banking account) within 10 days of the application being approved.

Question #7: What other resources are available if the PPP is not a good fit for you?
Answer: There are additional programs available through the Small Business Administration (SBA) including the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, which features an advance amount (EIDL Emergency Grant) of up to $10,000. Guidance remains outstanding on exact implications of the EIDL Emergency Grant amount with some SBA offices pointing to $1,000 per employee up to a total max of $10,000. This EIDL Emergency Grant does not have to be repaid, but if you subsequently receive funding through the PPP, your forgiveness amount will be reduced by the EIDL Emergency Grant amount. The EIDL program also features a max life of 30 year loan with interest rates of 3.75% and 2.75% for entities that are for-profit and non-profit, respectively. More information on this is detailed in Dave Erb’s recent blog post.

If you do not need to make use of the PPP and EIDL programs, but still face significant downturns in your revenue base, tax relief in the form of the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) may also be an option. The provisions of the ERC within the CARES Act specify eligibility as, an employer that does not participate in the PPP and: (i) a complete or partial shutdown in operations; or (ii) at least a 50% decline in gross receipts, based on quarterly comparison from 2020 to 2019. The ERC allows for a tax credit of 50% of qualified wages (max wages of $10,000 per employee and max credit of $5,000 per employee). For more information on the ERC provisions, see Bill Enck’s blog post.

As developments continue to unfold and changes in guidance continue to emerge, the BerryDunn Recovery Advisory Team can help you stay informed through the BerryDunn COVID-19 Resource Center.