Handwritten Books. He Bought It at 27.
He was 27, the business was 120 years old, and the books were handwritten. QuickBooks was sort of in the mix but nobody used it religiously. We put the picture back together as far as it would go, and it still was not 100%. That is a real Main Street deal. I gave him the truth instead of a clean number: it could be the EBITDA they say, or it could be a bit less. With handwritten financials you cannot get to a definitive answer, and pretending you can is how buyers get hurt.