Exit Planning Client Profile

Industry: Hospitality
Annual Revenue: $8M
EBITDA: $1M

Background & Challenges

After going through Calder Capital’s valuation process, this company’s owner sought to improve her valuation so that she could achieve a $3M price. With a desire to exit within 12 months and little time to waste, Calder’s team introduced Exit Planning as a way to maximize marketability, readiness, and to create a lasting impact on the value of her business.

Initial roadblocks identified included:

• Compressed Timeline: The owner sought an exit within 12 months, leaving minimal runway for performance improvement or strategic repositioning.
• Owner Involvement: Although she had no formal title, the owner remained deeply involved in daily operations and decisions, creating ambiguity around leadership roles.
• Fragmented Advisory Input: The owner was surrounded by multiple advisors outside of Calder Capital. While Calder always advocates the involvement of other professional advisors, for example, CPA and attorney, sometimes there can be too many cooks in the kitchen. In this instance, there were and it was resulting in conflicting advice and resulting inaction by the owner.
• Deal Structure: She initially rejected any structure that wasn’t 100% cash at close, limiting the buyer pool’s potential.
• Leadership Risk Exposure: Disclosing a change-in-control bonus prematurely caused internal friction, especially with a CEO who believed their role may be redundant post-transaction.

Calder’s Exit Planning Approach

Acknowledging the need for speed and clarity rather than long-term transformation, Calder implemented a coaching-heavy exit planning model designed to ensure readiness and maximize value in the eyes of buyers. As a result, Calder Capital’s Exit Planning team asked the owner to complete our 50 Value Factors assessment; the results of the assessment determined the key areas of focus as:

• Executive Coaching & Education: Providing context around deal structuring to broaden the owner’s understanding of viable exit scenarios.
• Process-Driven Engagement: Used Calder’s 50 Value Factors assessment to identify and systematically address areas of improvement, aligning with the owner’s preference for step-by-step progress.
• Advisor Alignment: Acted as the central point of coordination to help synthesize conflicting input from various external advisors.
• Digital Optimization: Flagged and addressed marketing-related performance gaps that had been missed by the client’s agency, increasing the value of their web presence.
• Leadership Sensitivities: Refined the change in control bonus plan while advising the owner on managing executive team dynamics.

Results & Next Steps

Meeting bi-weekly, Calder Capital’s Exit Planning Director, Jared Friar and the owner worked down the list of improvement opportunities identified by the assessment. With an owner who was very focused on turning everything from red (opportunity for improvement) to green (positive), Calder created an environment for regularly occurring continuous improvement.

During our Exit Planning consultation, several core outcomes were achieved:

• Bonus Plan Refined and Executive Friction Resolved: A formalized change in control bonus structure was developed and implemented with future alignment in mind. And the CEO’s disruption has now been addressed.
• Legal Work Underway: The owner finalized legal work related to family equity interests to streamline the ownership structure.
• Go-to-Market Preparation: Internal alignment has been secured, with meaningful success being achieved in sales, employee relations, marketing, finances, product mix, and operating margins.

With preliminary readiness work completed by the owner and Calder Capital’s Exit Planning team, the company is poised for a successful transaction with Calder Capital as the Sell-Side advisor.

Why Work With Calder’s Exit Planning Team?

Calder Capital is a National M&A Advisory firm with a proven track record of success, with 300+ deals closed and 700+ valuations completed since opening its doors in 2013. While other exit planning advisors may claim to know how a buyer will view your business, Calder works with thousands of real buyers and closes dozens of transactions annually. We know what buyers are looking for, and what characteristics make certain businesses more successful on the market than others.

Calder is industry agnostic (does not focus on one industry); however, the firm has closed many transactions in the manufacturing, construction, distribution, and business service industries with enterprise values ranging from $1M – $100M. This does not mean Calder limits itself to these spaces, as we recognize all businesses are not the same, and a successful deal does not always occur in a linear fashion. Calder’s success is driven by its client-focused approach, taking the time to understand our clients and the nuance that comes along with each individual business. This is a point of pride, which makes Exit Planning Services a natural fit.

Calder Capital has the people, knowledge, tools, and resources needed to assist businesses with varying degrees of complexity. With Calder Capital’s experience with business valuation and M&A sales, there is a natural opportunity for clients to transition from Exit Planning to being engaged for an optimized business sale all while maintaining continuity within Calder Capital.

Contact Exit Planning Director, Jared Friar at [email protected] or 616-822-0141 to learn more!

About Calder Capital

Calder Capital is a lower middle market investment bank providing mergers and acquisitions advisory services to business owners, entrepreneurs, family offices, and investors across the United States. Our dedicated team of professionals combines extensive industry experience, technological innovation, negotiation savvy, and key relationships to deliver exceptional execution. Calder’s services include mergers and acquisitions advisory, private funds and capital markets advisory, and business valuations. To learn more, please visit http://caldergr.com