10 Jul Insights from a Roundtable of Industry Experts
The recent Business Brokerage Press RoundTable Webinar was something special as we had an info-packed webinar with several industry leaders. The guests this week were Kyle Griffith, Lisa Riley, Scott Mashuda, Darren Mize, Adam Debussy, Doug Whitmire, Steve Mariani, George Giles and Ron West. To listen to this webinar, click here.
The Panel of Experts
Griffith is Managing Partner at NYBB Group; Scott Mashuda is co-founder of and is the current M&A advisory chair of M&A Source; Doug Whitmeyer is the Director of Sales for BizBySell; Darren Mize is the co-founder of GCF Valuations; Steve Mariani is the owner of Diamond Financial; Adam Debussy is the Director of Marketing at BizBuySell; Lisa Riley is the current chair of the Market Pulse Report and with Delta Business Advisors; George Giles is the Founder of Intemedior Business Advisors, and the panel was rounded out by the legendary Ron West.
An Overview of 2023 to Date
This comprehensive discussion explored several key areas including what were the top industries sold so far in 2023 and who were the buyers of these businesses?
The panel also reviewed financing in 2023, the current level of buyer and seller confidence, the outlook of the business brokerage industry, the current valuation landscape and updates from IBBA, M&A Source and BizBuySell.
Improvements with BizBuySell
The information regarding BizBuySell was quite interesting. The view is that 2023 has been very strong for BizBuySell with the number of visitors growing in the double digits year over year. Likewise leads, listings and businesses for sale have all continued to see strong growth.
BizBuySell is continuing to make improvements with communications and improve engagement with brokers. Improvements have been navigation and user experience. This has enabled users to more readily find business brokers and M&A advisors. Additionally, there have been improvements to the broker directory. All of the improvements have served to greatly enhance the process of finding a business broker.
Insights on Valuations
Darren Mize had a variety of insights into valuations. He feels that with COVID hopefully behind us, we have entered a new historical period. That stated, he also is seeing that the bump that occurred after COVID is starting to pull back somewhat.
Through most of 2021 and part of 2022, there was nice growth, but towards the end of 2022, Mize noticed that there was a bit of a pull back. SBA lending in the second quarter of 2023 was down roughly 20%.
In our next article, we’ll continue to explore Darren Mize’s operations and insights on valuations. There are many variables that are currently impacting valuations both now and in the future.
