What makes a business valuable?

Why can a profitable company still be difficult to sell? Why can old machinery be worth more than its accounting value? Why does one business have substantial goodwill while another depends almost entirely on its physical assets?

Business and Asset Values explains how value actually works inside privately held businesses.

Written for business owners, entrepreneurs, investors, buyers, sellers, lenders, accountants, lawyers, advisors, and appraisers, this practical guide explores the forces that cause value to grow, weaken, transfer, or disappear.

Inside, you will learn:

• Why cash flow is the foundation of business value

• How risk and expected returns affect valuation multiples

• Why profit, SDE, EBITDA, and cash flow are not interchangeable

• How owner dependence can reduce transferability and value

• Why some businesses are worth more than the sum of their assets

• How goodwill is created, measured, protected, and sometimes overstated

• Why accounting values often differ from market values

• How machinery, equipment, inventory, and other tangible assets are appraised

• The differences between Fair Market Value, Orderly Liquidation Value, and Forced Liquidation Value

• Why the same business or asset can have several legitimate values at the same time

• How speculation, buyer motivation, financing, and market conditions influence price

• Why valuation formulas, credentials, and databases cannot replace sound judgment.

This is not simply a book about buying or selling a company.

It is a guide to understanding what you own, what makes it valuable, what threatens that value, and what must be true for someone else to recognize and pay for it.

Whether you are building a company, evaluating an investment, preparing for succession, financing a transaction, advising a client, settling a dispute, or trying to understand the assets already on your balance sheet, Business and Asset Values will help you ask better questions and make better decisions.