FROM THE DESK OF FADI MALOUF | OCTOBER 2026
Three businesses for sale landed in my inbox this month. All published. All with the numbers sitting right on the page.
The one that keeps the most of every dollar it bills got the cheapest price of the three.
The Signal
The shortlist from the October Scout Report by BizScout:
An advertising shop in Alabama. $190K revenue, $79K cash flow, asking $149K.
A portfolio of health and wellness brands in New York. $1M revenue, $327K cash flow, asking $795K.
An insurance call agency in California. $5.6M revenue, $634K cash flow, asking $2.1M.
The Alabama shop keeps about 42 cents of every dollar and is priced at 1.9 times cash flow. The California agency keeps about 11 cents and is priced at 3.3 times.
The lesson. Price does not follow margin. It follows dollars. $634K of cash flow is a number a bank can lend against and a manager can run. $79K is a job with a logo on it. Margin tells you how good the business is. Dollars tell you who is allowed to bid.
The move. Write down your owner earnings for the last twelve months in dollars, not as a percentage. That number sets your buyer pool.
Source: BizScout listings for the Alabama shop, the New York portfolio and the California agency.
The Teardown
The California agency, read the way a buyer should read it.
It connects insurance buyers with publishers that generate inbound calls and keeps a spread on every call. The listing counts about 60 active buyers and says the owners work limited weekly hours.
At 3.3 times cash flow, the price is not the question. The questions are where the risk is hiding.
Revenue. The headline on the listing says $5.6M. The data line on the same page says $6M. Ask which one the tax returns match.
The spread. Thin margin means the business lives on the gap between what buyers pay per call and what publishers charge. Ask what happened to that gap the last time a big publisher raised its rate.
Concentration. Sixty buyers sounds spread out. Ask what share of revenue the top five carry.
The relationships. If the owners hold the publisher contacts personally, you are buying their phone book, not a system.
If the answers hold, this is a business a lender can underwrite. If they do not, the multiple is paying for a story.
The Number
29,000.
That is how many jobs the economy added in September, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. July and August were revised down by a combined 60,000. Unemployment sits at 4.2%.
Here is what that means for an owner. Hiring is slowing, so the manager you could not find last year may be easier to find now.
If your business is a $79K job, a direct way to raise its price is to hire the person who makes it run without you. It costs you cash flow this year. It can buy you a bigger buyer pool for every year after.
The Move
One page, two lines, this week.
Line one: your owner earnings in dollars.
Line two: what is left after you pay someone else to do your job.
The second number is the one a buyer is pricing. If the gap between the two lines scares you, good. Now you know what to fix before anyone else finds it.
The Door
If you are under $3M in revenue or under 30% margins, that gap is your exit plan. Five questions, two minutes, and you know where you stand.
Forward motion,
Fadi
This communication is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, financial instruments, or investment products. FM Enterprises and Fadi Malouf do not provide legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. Any business, acquisition, or capital related discussion is subject to further review, appropriate due diligence, and applicable professional guidance.