Landscaping Company: Sale of This Business Enabled Owner and Buyer to Pursue their Desired Career Path
Industry Expertise
Location
Business Broker
Situation
After 30 years of growing his thriving landscaping company, the owner decided it was time to sell his business. He wanted the next chapter of his career to focus on the growing property management business he had built alongside his landscaping company. The owner built his landscaping business from the ground up, starting with a single lawn mower. Affable and well known in the community, he provided great landscaping services to the cluster of towns he served, which included Needham, Wellesley, Dover and Medfield. Although the business had a strong cash flow, it lacked certain documentation like customer contracts. The owner was seeking a buyer who could see beyond those documents and recognize the strength of the business and the tremendous growth opportunity it offered.
BayState Business Brokers’ Approach
Recognizing he needed an expert to guide him through the selling process, the owner contacted BayState Business Brokers. The company walked him through its proven, comprehensive process for successfully selling businesses to qualified buyers. The process began with BayState’s broker leveraging her deep experience in business analytics to provide a sound Opinion of Value of the company. The broker then put BayState’s highly effective process into action, which effectively marketed this business to a base of qualified, vetted buyers. This effort generated immediate interest from multiple potential buyers who were in the landscaping business. While this fast response was promising, the offers were initially low. Confident that a higher offer would come in, the broker advised her client to wait. This strategy and patience paid off and a buyer seeking to get into the landscaping business offered the full listing price. This buyer recognized the true value of the company, which was based on its high profitability, solid base of maintenance customers that provided recurring revenue, its low overhead, and that it served customers in close proximity for efficiency in service delivery. The buyer initially encountered a roadblock, however, with several lending banks rejecting his financing because he was new to the business. BayState stepped in with a solution, tapping an SBA lender in its network that approved the buyer’s financing.
Results
Success! The deal closed at the full listing price in the desired six-month timeframe. Both the buyer and seller transitioned to new their new, desired career paths. The previous owner now focused solely on his property management business and the new owner entered the landscaping business with a successful, thriving company.
