The Silver Tsunami: Buying a Business From a Retiring Generation
May 13, 2026
by a professional-advisory from University of Utah - David Eccles School of Business in Sandy, UT, USA
Something underappreciated in the ETA community right now:
Seller motivation is at an unusual high — and it's structural, not cyclical.
10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day. Most own profitable SMBs with no succession plan. These aren't distressed sellers. They're done sellers — and done sellers are the most flexible counterparties that exist. Seller notes, earnouts, creative structures, extended transitions. The terms you want most are most available right now.
The institutional capital that would compress these multiples can't deploy efficiently at this deal size. For now, searchers are competing against other individual SBA buyers — not PE firms. That gap won't last forever. The peak of this wave is roughly 2025–2030.
I wrote a book about it — The Silver Tsunami. It's not a search fund book specifically; it's more focused on Main Street M&A and the rollup thesis for service businesses. But the underlying demographic argument is directly relevant to anyone actively sourcing right now.
Genuinely curious — is anyone in the community explicitly targeting motivated Boomer sellers as a sourcing filter? And how are you identifying them before the broker does?
I wrote a book about it — The Silver Tsunami. It's not a search fund book specifically; it's more focused on Main Street M&A and the rollup thesis for service businesses. But the underlying demographic argument is directly relevant to anyone actively sourcing right now.
Genuinely curious — is anyone in the community explicitly targeting motivated Boomer sellers as a sourcing filter? And how are you identifying them before the broker does?
from University of Utah in Sandy, UT, USA