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San Ramon, CA (BizBen) February 7, 2007 – A retail business was one of the top businesses sold on BizBen.com last week. The upscale retail boutique in San Francisco carries brand name womens clothing. Business broker George Arabian worked with over twenty potential buyers to find the best match.
Both the previous and new owners were passionate about the business, located on a busy designer street in Mill Valley. The buyer had to get financing to close the deal, but that presented a problem. The problem was the last three year’s tax returns showed a loss, making it tough to qualify for a loan.
The owners of the retail business had four other stores, some of which were not making money. All of the tax returns were figured together, which canceled out the profits of the stores that were performing well. The seller’s accountant normalized the costs, and used the point of sale system to get the actual revenue and cost of goods sold. Armed with this information, they were able to secure a SBA loan for the seller with less than 20% down.
The husband and wife team who bought the boutique already owned two retail businesses in California. Buying another store means they can now order in larger quantities, combine advertising costs, and extend their brand. They also plan to do more marketing such as direct mail and joint promotional events with the local chamber of commerce.
The retail business was one of 1,327 California businesses sold by owners of small businesses, business brokers, & real estate agents for the month of January 8, 2007 through February 5, 2007.
Sales of California businesses during this time period by County include:
Alameda County: 34, Amador County: 3, Butte County: 2, Calaveras County: 2,
Contra Costa County: 22, El Dorado County: 13, Fresno County: 14, Inyo
County: 1, Kern County: 24, Lake County: 1, Lassen County: 2, Los Angeles
County: 473, Marin County: 19, Mendocino County: 2, Merced County: 10, Napa
County: 3, Nevada County: 9, Orange County: 181, Placer County: 18,
Riverside County: 60, Sacramento County: 10, San Bernardino County: 75, San
Diego County: 70, San Francisco County: 53, San Joaquin County: 4, San Luis
Obispo County: 15, San Mateo County: 25, Santa Barbara County: 20, Santa
Clara County: 81, Santa Cruz County: 8, Sierra County: 1, Siskiyou County:
1, Solano County: 7, Sonoma County: 28, Stanislaus County: 11, Sutter
County: 2, Tuolumne County: 1, Ventura County: 14, Yolo County: 6, Yuba
County: 2. 21,500 California Businesses for Sale, Franchises, & Business Opportunities
Were Sold in the last 13 months.
Sales of California businesses during this time period by month include:
January 2007: 1,318
December 2006: 1,634
November 2006: 1,750
October 2006: 1,977
September 2006: 988
August 2006: 1,519
July 2006: 1,913
June 2006: 1,750
May 2006: 1,703
April 2006: 1,548
March 2006: 2,435
February 2006: 1,606
January 2006: 1,359
About George Arabian
California business broker George Arabian of VR Business Brokers serves the San Francisco area. He focuses on representing business owners of small to mid-sized businesses with $500,000 to $10,000,000 in revenues. He specializes in Internet business sales, upscale retail businesses, and spas.
He is a new guest blogger on the BizBen blog and hosts regular business broker workshops in California.
About BizBen
BizBen.com was started in 1994 by industry expert Peter Siegel, MBA. He writes a syndicated small business blog. BizBen serves California business buyers, small business owners, business brokers, and real estate agents. Over 40,000 business buyers come to BizBen each day to search over 6000 California small business listings for sale.
To get new businesses for sale listings, sign up for BizBen’s email reports at www.bizben.com/reports/ or RSS feeds at www.bizben.com/news/rss-listing.php. |
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Peter Siegel, MBA 
