HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company (Richard S. Ruback; Royce Yudkoff, 2017)

• Acrimony: bitterness or ill feelings
• Most small businesses sell between 3 to 5 times their EBITDA
• Proposal needs: teaser and confidential information memorandum (CIM)
• Businesses without enduring profitability: technology-driven, cyclical, huge competitors (dance with a giant, and you will get crushed), specialised assets
• Quantitative filter: high EBITDA margin, recurring customers, fragmented customers & suppliers (no concentration), right revenue growth, steady (not cyclical) sales
• Fundamental buying assessment: seller’s character, accounts & finance, contracts & legal affairs, customers & employees’ perspectives, other specialised due diligence (machinery & equipment, software, environmental hazards, regulatory compliance & rule change)