The B2B Podcast Index
Index
All categories
MarketingSalesSaaSFinanceHROpsLeadershipCustomer SuccessAI & DataProductStartups & FoundersRevOpsEngineering & DevTools
MethodologySubmit
Best of:MarketingSalesSaaSFinanceHROpsLeadershipCustomer SuccessAI & DataProductStartups & FoundersRevOpsEngineering & DevTools
An independent project byFame
SearchBest episodesGuestsInsightsMethodologySubmit a podcast
Index/Startups & Founders/Built to Sell Radio
Built to Sell Radio artwork

Ep 549 How a $105 Million Business Sale Revealed the Second Most Important Number in an LOI

Built to Sell Radio · 2026-06-05 · 39 min

0:00--:--

Episode notes

Every founder fixates on the multiple. Tim Hellebrand will tell you the (second) most important number on a letter of intent is the one almost nobody understands until it is too late: working capital. When Tim and his four brothers took their $105 million family appliance business to market, six letters of intent came back, and the spread between the lowest and the highest was 60 percent. Most of that gap had nothing to do with the multiple. Don's Appliances ran on a mountain of inventory, refrigerators and ranges and washers sitting across two distribution centers, and every buyer had a different view of how much of that had to stay locked in the company on closing day. Whatever stayed in was money the brothers did not get to take home. Tim assumed they would simply get their inventory money back. That is not how it works.

More from Built to Sell Radio

All episodes →
  • Ep 553 Why 17.5% of Owners Are Burnt Out and Want to Sell77 / 100
  • Ep 552: What to Know Before Selling to an ETA Buyer | Built to Sell Radio
  • Ep 551 Cameron Passmore Sold Half an $8 Billion Firm - Then Acquired 5 More Businesses
  • Ep 550 The One Phrase That Can Ruin a $10 Million Business Sale
  • Ep 548 The Threat and Curse of AI
Explore the best B2B Startups & Founders podcasts →
All Built to Sell Radio episodes →