Nearly 500 new deals in Pratt’s Stats show recovery is slow

BVWireIssue #90-2
March 10, 2010

Valuation multiples have definitely taken a fall over the past two to three years, according to new data from Pratt’s Stats®:

Year of Sale

Count

Median revenue

Median selling price

Median price/ sales multiple

Median price/ gross profit

2007

1,493

$844K

$419K

0.58

1.03

2008

1,626

$535K

$250K

0.52

0.88

2009

862

$483K

$207K

0.47

0.74

“It’s important to note that the above includes all industries, company sizes, company types (S Corp, C Corp, etc.), all sale types (asset and stock); it includes everything in one tasty soup,” says BVMarketData publisher Doug Twitchell. “Even with that, it’s probably a fairly good indicator of what’s happened with valuation multiples overall.”

Even better news: In just the last two months, we’ve collected 439 deals for Pratt’s Stats, taking the total transactions to just over 15,000. The median net sales of the collected deals equaled $438K with a median selling price of $200K. Here’s a breakdown of the deals by major industry category—note that restaurants still show up as the top SIC code, accounting for 87 new deals:

Industry

Count

Agriculture, Forestry, And Fishing

8

Construction

21

Manufacturing

28

Transportation, Communications, Electric, Gas, And Sanitary Services

11

Wholesale Trade

25

Retail Trade

205

Finance, Insurance, And Real Estate

14

Services

127

Total

439

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