2018 set new small business sales records

BizBuySell.com’s Annual 2018 Insight Report shows that 2018 broke records for small businesses bought and sold, and retiring Baby Boomers continued to fuel the market as buyers eagerly exit the corporate world.

For the third year in a row, a record number of small businesses changed hands, according to the latest BizBuySell Insight Report, a nationally-recognized economic indicator which aggregates statistics from business-for-sale transactions reported by participating business brokers nationwide. A total of 10,312 businesses were reported sold in 2018, the most since BizBuySell start collecting such data in 2007.

The year’s brisk activity of businesses being sold represents a four percent increase over the previous record of 9,919 in 2017 and a 31 percent jump from 2016’s then-high of 7,842.

In addition to the reported sale data, BizBuySell also separately surveyed business brokers and small business owners about the market. Brokers said they saw similar increases, with 65 percent of respondents reporting that their transaction activity increased in 2018 while another 21 percent said it remained similar to 2017’s active level. When asked why they believed the business-for-sale market has remained so hot, brokers credited an increasing number of buyers & sellers and the general improvement of the small business environment. Similarly, current small business owners credited the same factors as the reason for transaction growth.

Here are a few highlights for small business transactions in the Memphis (TN-AR-MS) area in Q4 of 2018, which is based on 44 Memphis-area businesses listed in Q4 at BizBuySell.com:

• The median asking price of businesses for sale in Memphis at the end of 2018 was exactly $210,000 compared to $365,000 at the end of 2017.
• Businesses listed in Memphis at the end of 2018 had a median revenue of $421,457 compared to down from $900,000 at this same time last year in 2017.
• The median cash flow for Memphis businesses is $100,000 vs median cash flow of $164,012 last year.

See the full press release at bit.ly/report2018-Q4 and an interactive map of data at bizbuysell.com/news/insight-interactive. Select from the dropdown menu to see data for the Memphis region (which includes Fayette, Shelby and Tipton counties in west Tennessee; Tunica, Tate, DeSoto and Marshall counties in north Mississippi; and Crittenden County in east Arkansas).