Expert Business Valuation Services for Critical Business Decisions
Business owners facing critical decisions need one thing above all else: a clear understanding of what their company is actually worth. Whether you're preparing for a sale, resolving partnership disputes, planning your estate, or navigating legal matters, professional business valuation services provide the foundation for successful outcomes.
Most business owners operate with only rough estimates of their company's value. Don't let this knowledge gap impact your most important business decisions. At Sun Business Valuations, we've helped thousands of business owners across diverse industries obtain precise, defensible valuations that withstand scrutiny from buyers, courts, tax authorities, and regulatory bodies.
Table of Contents
- What Are Business Valuation Services?
- When You Need Business Valuation
- Business Valuation Methods & Approaches
- Industry-Specific Valuation Considerations
- The Sun Business Valuations Process
- Why Choose Sun Business Valuations
- Business Valuation Resource Center
- Ready to Understand Your Business's True Value?
What Are Business Valuation Services?
Business valuation services involve a comprehensive analysis that determines the fair market value of a privately held company. Far more than basic financial calculations, professional business valuations require a deep understanding of your business's unique characteristics, industry dynamics, market position, and economic factors to arrive at an accurate, defensible assessment.
Key Components of Professional Business Valuation Services
Financial Performance Analysis encompasses historical and projected cash flows, profitability trends, financial stability, working capital requirements, and debt capacity analysis. This comprehensive review provides the foundation for understanding your company's economic performance and future potential.
Market Conditions Assessment involves analyzing industry outlook and economic factors, competitive landscape dynamics, market growth trends and cycles, plus regulatory environment impacts. These external factors significantly influence how the market perceives and values businesses in your sector.
Operational Risk Evaluation assesses management quality and depth, customer concentration and dependency issues, operational efficiency and scalability potential, as well as overall growth sustainability. Understanding these operational factors helps identify both value drivers and potential risks that impact your business's worth.
Intangible Asset Valuation considers brand value and market recognition, customer relationships and loyalty, proprietary processes and technology, as well as intellectual property rights. These often-overlooked assets can represent significant portions of your company's total value.
Professional Standards and Compliance
Our business valuation services adhere to recognized professional standards, including IRS Revenue Ruling 59-60 guidelines, American Society of Appraisers (ASA) standards, National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA) principles, and Financial reporting standards such as ASC 820 and ASC 805. These standards ensure our valuations meet the highest professional requirements and withstand scrutiny from courts, tax authorities, and other interested parties.
When You Need Business Valuation
Understanding when to obtain professional business valuation services can significantly impact your outcomes. Here are the most common situations requiring expert valuation:
Transaction-Related Valuations
Business Sales, Mergers & Acquisitions. Whether selling your business or evaluating acquisition opportunities, accurate valuation provides the foundation for successful negotiations. Professional assessments help establish realistic pricing expectations and support your position during deal discussions.
Partnership Buy-Outs and Buy-Ins. Shareholder transactions require objective valuation to ensure fair treatment of all parties. Clear, documented valuations prevent disputes and facilitate smooth ownership transitions.
Legal and Compliance Matters
Estate and Gift Tax Planning. The IRS requires accurate valuations for estate and gift tax purposes. Professional business valuation services ensure compliance while potentially minimizing tax burdens through appropriate valuation discounts for lack of marketability, minority interest positions, key person dependency, and industry-specific risks. These discounts reflect real economic factors that impact the value of closely held business interests.
Divorce Settlements. When businesses are marital assets, determining fair market value is crucial for equitable distribution. Court-ready valuations help resolve disputes and facilitate fair settlements while minimizing legal costs.
Corporate Litigation. Business valuations are essential in various types of litigation, from domestic relations to minority shareholder suits and business sale disputes. A professionally prepared business valuation with well-documented and supportable valuation methods adds credibility to your case.
Shareholder and Partnership Disputes. Disagreements over company value can quickly become contentious and expensive. Independent, professional valuations provide objective assessments that facilitate resolution and reduce litigation costs.
Strategic Planning and Growth
Succession Planning. Understanding your business's current value and value drivers enables effective succession strategies. This knowledge helps maximize value for retiring owners while ensuring business continuity.
Financial Reporting and Compliance. Certain accounting standards and regulatory requirements necessitate formal business valuations for purchase price allocations, impairment testing, stock-based compensation, and financial statement reporting. These compliance requirements ensure accurate financial reporting and adherence to regulations.
Intangible Asset Valuation (ASC 805) Business combinations and acquisitions require separate valuation of identifiable intangible assets under ASC 805 accounting standards. Professional valuation of customer relationships, technology, trade names, and other intangible assets ensures proper financial reporting and purchase price allocation.
Strategic Decision Making. Regular valuations offer valuable insights for capital allocation, growth investments, and strategic planning decisions that significantly impact long-term value creation.
Financing and Investment
SBA Loans and Business Financing. Lenders often require independent valuations to assess risk and determine appropriate loan amounts. Professional valuations support financing applications and may help secure more favorable terms.
Investor Relations and Raising Capital. When seeking investment or reporting to stakeholders, credible valuations demonstrate transparency and professionalism while supporting funding requests.
Fairness Opinions Independent fairness opinions provide objective assessments of proposed transactions to boards of directors and shareholders. These opinions help demonstrate that transaction terms are fair from a financial perspective and support fiduciary duty compliance.
Business Valuation Methods & Approaches
Professional business valuation employs three fundamental approaches, each with specific methodologies suited to different business types and valuation purposes.
Market Approach
The market approach determines value by comparing your business to similar companies that have been sold or are publicly traded.
Guideline Public Company Method
Comparable Transaction Method
Income Approach
The income approach values businesses based on their ability to generate future economic benefits.
Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Method
Capitalization of Earnings Method
Asset-Based Approach
Asset-based methods determine value by analyzing underlying assets and liabilities.
Adjusted Net Asset Method
Excess Earnings Method
Industry-Specific Valuation Considerations
Different industries require specialized knowledge and tailored approaches. Our experience across diverse sectors ensures industry-appropriate methodologies and relevant benchmarking.
Key Industries and Valuation Factors
Business Services companies often derive value from client relationships, recurring contracts, and specialized expertise. Key considerations include customer concentration, contract terms, and the transferability of client relationships.
Technology and Software businesses require evaluation of intellectual property, recurring revenue models, customer acquisition costs, and technology obsolescence risks. Growth potential and scalability are often primary value drivers.
Manufacturing and Processing companies are valued based on production capacity, equipment efficiency, supply chain relationships, and inventory management. Asset values and operational efficiency have a significant impact on overall business value.
Healthcare & Medical practices and companies face unique regulatory environments and reimbursement structures. Valuation must consider payor mix, regulatory compliance, key person dependency, and succession planning complexities.
Construction and Real Estate businesses often have project-based revenue and significant equipment assets. Key factors include project backlog, bonding capacity, equipment condition, and geographic market dynamics.
Financial Services firms require analysis of regulatory capital requirements, fee structures, client asset levels, and compliance costs. Recurring revenue streams and client retention rates are critical value drivers.
Professional Services firms typically have high human capital dependency and intangible value in client relationships. Key considerations include partner/employee retention, non-compete agreements, and succession planning.
Retail and Hospitality businesses depend heavily on location, brand recognition, and customer loyalty. Factors such as lease terms, foot traffic patterns, and market demographics significantly influence value.
Transportation and Logistics companies require evaluation of their equipment fleets, route networks, regulatory compliance, and fuel cost management. Operational efficiency and geographic coverage affect valuation conclusions.
The Sun Business Valuations Process
Our systematic approach ensures accurate, comprehensive valuations tailored to your specific needs and objectives.
Preliminary Steps
We begin by discussing the details of the engagement with principals to ensure a complete understanding of the objectives and purpose of the business valuation engagement. Sun appreciates that different valuation purposes dictate alternative approaches, whether you're preparing for a sale, resolving a dispute, or planning your estate.
Request a Proposal
Upon gaining a complete understanding of your objectives, we provide an oral fee quote and a written valuation engagement summary. This proposal outlines the scope of our service offering, the expected timeline, and the fee for services, ensuring complete transparency before we begin.
Data Gathering
We compile information about your company through detailed questionnaires, shareholder interviews, and a comprehensive review of financial documents. Our ability to fully understand all financial and operational aspects of a client's company enables us to better achieve the valuation objective and support our business valuation conclusions. This requires a thorough understanding of the financial statements and any necessary recasting adjustments to account for owner benefits, perquisites, one-time and non-recurring expenses, intangible assets, and operational and industry risk factors that may substantiate higher or lower valuation conclusions. When applicable, we collaborate with our clients to generate projections of their anticipated future financial performance.
Research and Analysis
This phase involves a thorough analysis of company documents, financial statements or tax returns, operational information, intangibles, risk factors, and other relevant data. Sun researches the economic factors, industry trends and influences, potential risk factors, and completed public and private comparable industry transactions. Since financial statements are prepared for tax purposes, they must be properly interpreted and recast in order to utilize them for business valuation purposes.
Valuation Preparation
Our reports include a comprehensive presentation of the specific business risk factors, a detailed description of the company and its market positioning, and a review and assessment of the prevailing economic conditions and trends in the specific industry. Detailed recast financial statements are included in the report. We consider, perform, and review an array of valuation methodologies to determine which best applies to your situation. All assumptions and results are tested for validity. Our goal is to provide a customized, comprehensive and defensible business valuation.
Management Review
A final draft of the report is reviewed with the client and any other professionals involved. The valuation is thoroughly explained to our clients and the associated advisors to ensure a thorough understanding of its conclusions, confirm accuracy, and enable the report to be fully utilized for the intended purpose. If appropriate, we will make required revisions to the draft and then issue the final report.
Why Choose Sun Business Valuations
It is essential to have a comfortable level of trust with the firm that you entrust to perform your business appraisal. A reputable firm should provide a high level of attention, professionalism, service, and expertise to your assignment. The following are factors that distinguish Sun Business Valuations, LLC:
Experience You Can Trust
Sun Business Valuations has been servicing the valuation community for over 30 years. We have performed thousands of business valuations in a wide array of industries, tailored to the specific valuation purpose. This extensive experience across diverse sectors ensures we understand the unique characteristics and challenges of your particular business and industry.
Prompt Turn-Around Time
Valuations are required or sought for a specific purpose, where timely results are typically a crucial factor. Sun dedicates its resources to provide a complete valuation within 10 to 15 business days of receiving the requisite information. We understand that business decisions often operate on tight timelines, and our efficient process ensures you receive your valuation when you need it.
Reasonable Fee Structure
Business valuation fees vary, depending on the nature and scope of the assignment. Sun Business Valuations provides the appropriate level of cost-effective valuation. We will provide a complimentary consultation to understand the unique nature of your engagement and offer a competitive fee quote. This transparent approach ensures you know exactly what to expect before we begin.
Comprehensive and Understandable Reports
Our analysis of realistic value is comprehensive, yet easy to understand. The format clearly explains the methodologies, reasoning, assumptions, and justification behind our valuation conclusions in a straightforward and easy-to-follow format. This enables the report to be utilized effectively for the intended purpose and thereby maximize its benefit for your specific situation.
Accreditation and Certifications
Sun Business Valuations is one of very few Valuation firms where our professionals hold certifications from all three trade organizations. Our professionals maintain valuation credentials from the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Accreditation in Business Valuation (ABV), in addition to the CPA certification, and the American Society of Appraisers (ASA). These professional credentials ensure our valuations meet the highest industry standards and are accepted by courts, tax authorities, and other professionals.
Customized Business Valuation Approach
Unlike many firms that tend to take a templated, "cookie-cutter" approach, Sun customizes each valuation to specifically address its purpose and to account for the unique aspects of each company and industry. All relevant valuation approaches and methodologies are considered when choosing the most appropriate methods for your specific situation.
Client References Available
We recognize that obtaining a business valuation is a serious matter with significant implications for our clients' businesses and their lives. We encourage you to speak to former clients to validate our capabilities and their experiences with Sun Business Valuations. Read what our clients have to say about working with our team.
Expert Witness & Litigation Support
Sun Business Valuations professionals can provide expert witness testimony in court cases supporting our business valuation reports. We can also critique opposing valuation reports when needed. Our experience in litigation settings ensures our valuations can withstand scrutiny and challenge in legal proceedings.
Nationwide Service with Local Attention
While headquartered in the Northeast, Sun Business Valuations serves clients throughout the United States. Our team understands regional market differences and local economic factors that impact business values.
Business Valuation Resource Center
Frequently Asked Questions
Ready to Understand Your Business's True Value?
Ready to gain clarity on your business's true value? Whether you need a valuation for a potential transaction, legal matter, succession planning, or strategic decision-making, Sun Business Valuations is here to help.
Why Act Now?
Understanding your business's value provides crucial insights for strategic planning, whether or not you're considering a transaction. The sooner you understand your company's worth and the factors that drive that value, the better positioned you'll be to make informed decisions about its future.
Benefits of Proactive Valuation include enhanced strategic planning capabilities, improved negotiating positions in transactions, better succession and exit planning outcomes, risk identification and mitigation opportunities, plus objective performance benchmarking against industry standards.
Next Steps
Schedule Your Consultation. Contact Stephen Goldberg, Managing Partner, at 800.232.0180 to discuss your specific needs and receive information about our process and approach.
Service Areas
Sun Business Valuations provides professional business valuation services throughout the United States. Our team understands regional market differences and local economic factors that impact business values across diverse geographic markets.
Primary Service Areas encompass the Northeast including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania; the Southeast covering Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia; the Midwest spanning Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; the West Coast including California, Oregon, and Washington; plus the Southwest covering Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado.
Contact Information
Sun Business Valuations, LLC Phone: 800.232.0180 Website: sunbusinessvaluations.com Contact Form Available Online
Professional Affiliations:
Sun Business Valuations provides professional business valuation services throughout the United States. Our certified experts deliver accurate, defensible valuations for businesses of all sizes across diverse industries, helping clients make informed decisions with confidence.