Financial Buyer
An investor (usually a private equity firm) buying your business as an investment — pays based on return, not strategic fit.
A financial buyer is an investor — usually a private equity firm, family office, or search fund — buying your business as an investment they plan to grow and eventually sell again. They're not in your industry. They don't need your customers to expand their own reach. What they need is a business they can buy at a price that lets them earn a target return over a holding period, typically 3–7 years. The math is straightforward: they buy at one multiple, grow the business, and sell at a higher multiple to a strategic buyer or another financial buyer. The price they pay is whatever lets that math work given their cost of capital and the risk they perceive.
Financial buyers run more rigorous diligence than individual buyers and pay competitively, but their offer is bounded by the return their model supports — there's a ceiling no amount of seller charm can move.
The financial buyer's first question is always — what's my entry multiple, what's my exit multiple, and what growth gets me from one to the other?
Find out what a buyer would see in your business — before you talk to one.
The Exit Desk free assessment takes 2 minutes. If you'd rather see what a full report looks like first, read a sample.
