When real estate accounts for 50-70% of ebidta, how do you price it?

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November 05, 2022

by a searcher from Georgia State University in Boston, MA, USA

A business I am looking at is priced off the ebidta, but the real estate is absolutely necessary for the business and accounts for 50-70% of the cash flow. After real estate payments, the remaining cash would be completely sucked up by the loan payment for the business itself. For contexts, everything about the business itself is good: great employees, organization, environmental, very well established, awards, exc, only downside is it’s not pandemic resistance. Please let me know how you’d approach the pricing? Thanks!

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Reply by a lender
from Eastern Illinois University in 900 E Diehl Rd, Naperville, IL 60563, USA
Whitney, I would agree with some of the comments above. First, the real estate needs to be valued separately as does the rent. Some Borrowers pay more in rent than the they need to whereas others might pay significantly less. The difference in rent needs to be either added back or deducted from the business cash flow when you go to determine the business value.

If you can acquire the real estate with the business, it does give you an advantage if you are looking at SBA 7A financing. First, if the real estate purchase is more than the business purchase, then you can secure a 25-year amortization on the entire debt. If the business purchase is more than the real estate purchase, then you can get a blended amortization where they assigned 10 years to the business debt and 25 years to the real estate debt, and you end up with an amortization between 10 and 17.5 years. This will give you a lower payment then financing both separately as you are extending out the business acquisition debt. Also, the involvement of real estate typically makes lenders more excited about the transaction.

If you need help trying to value the business, we would be more than happy to run some analysis for you. We do this for free for our clients. We would just need to see the CIM and/or any financials you have received on the business. You can reach me directly at anytime at redacted Thank you and good luck.
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Reply by a searcher
from University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA
We have had a similar set of challenges in divorcing real estate from operating business. The right way to deal with this is to value the real estate as real estate (e.g., rental income less real estate related expenses) and the business as the business (E.g., EBITDA less rental expenses) and apply the appropriate multiple/cap rate to each. While this is the "right" way, figuring out the components that go with each side is very subjective. Generally, real estate cap rates are much higher than business multiples so there is an incentive to put more value / profits to the real estate. Let me know if you want more thoughts here or would like to chat.
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