Judgment Day

One company builder opens his books to the experts.

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On a sunny Thursday in May, a business owner named Bill comes to a suburban office park north of Boston to find out how much he can expect to get for his company. As he told his appraisers when he first met with them the previous Friday, Bill has some decisions to make. He's 58. He recently had cardiac bypass surgery. His electrical-contracting business, which employs some 60 people and is known for its ability to handle tricky jobs -- such as rewiring a hospital without interrupting the power supply -- had annual revenue of $23.2 million as recently as 2001 but has fallen off considerably since then. More to the point, Bill, who asked that his real name be withheld, would like to retire soon. But since neither his brother (a vice president), nor his son (a project manager), nor any of the other project managers have the skills or interest to run the company, he sees two options: He can bring in a new guy, appoint him, say, chief operating officer, and allow him to take over gradually. Or he can try to sell the company to an outside party. And that, of course, is why he's hired the appraisers -- to tell him what he might get for his life's work.

A solidly built man of average height, balding, with a neat gray mustache, Bill enters the offices of Axiom Valuation Solutions and takes a seat at a conference table. Stanley Feldman, chairman, and Roger Winsby, president, have prepared a 10-page large-print overview of Axiom's conclusions, but Bill turns right to the last two pages. Feldman and Winsby have broken down the valuation into two scenarios: the "Status Quo Scenario," which assumes that someone comes in, takes over, and runs the business pretty much the way Bill has; and the "Value Enhancement Scenario," which assumes that the person who comes in is able to build revenue back to where it was in 2001 and make significant reductions in costs. Feldman notices the change in Bill's expression as he spots the number for the Status Quo Scenario: $1.5 million, plus the extra million in cash Bill has on the books.

"Less than you expected?" asks Winsby.

"Yes," says Bill.

Axiom charges $2,000 for a valuation -- but for an additional hourly consulting fee that varies with the complexity of the case, Feldman and Winsby will also offer their advice. Today, Bill is paying extra to hear how he can maximize his company's value. Winsby gives the page-by-page analysis, while Feldman provides color commentary.

First, Winsby softens the blow of the lower valuation by explaining that the right type of buyer might be willing to pay more. That's because there's a difference between what he terms "fair market value" and "acquisition value." An independent person coming in to run the business much the way Bill has is likely to be willing to pay less than an "acquirer" -- a large company that's rolling up businesses like Bill's. The large company has a greater ability to reduce costs with economies of scale, and it has the financial wherewithal to pay more.

Still, the Income Statement Review tells a grim tale. In the firm's best year, 2001, it made $511,000 in operating earnings on its $23.2 million revenue. After 9/11, however, business slowed considerably: Revenue dipped to $18.3 million in 2002, and last year was one of the firm's worst, with Bill eking out a $100,000 profit on $10.9 million in revenue. The situation would be even more worrisome, says Roger, if this were a manufacturing firm, with high fixed costs. But because it's a contract business, Bill has been able to expand and contract his work force as business comes and goes, and even when his revenue was sliced in half he was still able to make a small profit.

It is also encouraging that Axiom has determined that what has happened to Bill's business in the past three years is more or less in line with developments in the construction industry as a whole. While revenue for the industry dropped significantly in 2002 and stayed flat in 2003, Feldman and Winsby, using data from an economic and business forecasting service, have determined that construction-industry earnings are now likely to grow 12% annually. The question, they say, is how to get the firm back to the $23 million level. Not surprisingly, the decline in revenue is a topic that Bill has given a great deal of thought: "People get stagnant," he says. "People get complacent."

Feldman suggests that Bill could bring in somebody new, someone to groom for the top spot. He could pay that person a modest salary but reward him with cash, equity in the company, or a combination based on the amount of business he or she brings in above and beyond the firm's current revenue. Feldman and Winsby estimate that Bill could pay a COO about $100,000 a year, not including bonuses. That's about $15,000 more than Bill had in mind, but Roger points out that Bill pays his project managers between $60,000 and $85,000, so $100,000 would be appropriate to attract someone with the right skills. Or, Feldman suggests, he could start a new COO at $85,000 and bring him up to $100,000 for meeting goals, such as improving the way the company manages projects. It also might make sense to create different classes of stock, so that the new guy gets some ownership at first but not voting rights (to protect against unforeseen power struggles). Bill indicates that he's open to all of these suggestions.

The appraiser suggests that Bill bring in someone new to run the company.

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