Getting Ready to Sell in 2012+
At the March 2010 Exit Planning Exchange (XPX) Summit, the lunchtime keynote speaker was investment banker and author Rob Slee. Rob is something of a visionary. He has intriguing ideas about new business models, insight into the changes that have shaped business today and how our competitive market has become “U.S. against the world”.
In his presentation to XPX, Rob described what he calls the “U.S. Ten Year Transfer Cycle” and explains why this transfer cycle is so important to business owners. Rob points out that in the past three decades (the 80′s, 90′s and whatever we end up calling the first decade of this century), we have experienced a very similar economic pattern that seems to be moving in a ten year cycle. This cycle accounts for our most recent recession that began in 2008 and, hopefully, we seem to slowly be escaping.
This means that the current market is primed for buyers and will remain a ‘buyers’ market’ until 2012. Around that point, financing should flow again from banks to potential buyers, generating higher prices for companies and resulting in more of a seller’s market. Of course there are no guarantees, but assuming this is the case how should business owners prepare?
