Partner Andrew Sherman Offers Advice to Entrepreneurs in ‘Exit Insights’ and ‘Smart Business Revolution’ Podcasts

Partner Andrew J. Sherman appeared on the podcasts “Exit Insights” and “Smart Business Revolution” to share his experiences and advice for entrepreneurs.

During the June 23 episode of “Exit Insights,” Sherman discussed how important intangible assets are in business valuation and M&A deals.

“Numbers follow, they don’t lead,” Sherman said. “Revenue doesn’t just come from the sky. Revenue comes from brands, processes, relationships, customer loyalty, that’s where revenue comes from. If you have none of those other four things, you will have zero revenue. So, a lot of times it’s just looking at the intangibles and their order of priority rather than as an afterthought.”

During the June 19 episode of the “Smart Business Revolution,” Sherman talked about the current trends in the M&A landscape.

Despite being in the middle of a global pandemic, Sherman said 2021 and 2022 were very kind to the capital markets. He said it was the perfect storm for middle market M&A with low interest rates and cheap capital. As interest rates have increased as the world comes out of the pandemic, it’s more of a buyer’s market.

“It’s a wonderful time to be a buyer if you’ve got the cash,” he said. “You can’t bring two parties to the table if the expectations are unreasonable and part of our job as lawyers or accountants or investment bankers is to see if we can bridge the gap creatively. It’s not that the seller doesn’t deserve some upside, but they may have to take more of it in a contingent payment or an earnout or a deferred payment or even a royalty payment on their IP or something like that.”