The BizNexus Partner Network is a curated group of M&A advisors, business brokers and intermediaries we work with across the lower middle market. Each partner is profiled here so the business owners and acquirers in our network know exactly who they are dealing with.
The firm
IBEX Business Exchange has been helping owners of privately held companies sell them since 1979, which makes it one of the longest-standing independent M&A advisories in the country. The firm works with owners across a wide range of industries, with particular depth in manufacturing, distribution and service businesses. IBEX covers ten states, and its primary focus is Texas.
Meet Jeff Elder
Jeff Elder is a Senior Advisor at IBEX Business Exchange, based in the Austin area. He has been an M&A advisor since 2005, holds an accounting degree and an MBA from Texas A&M, and has been recognized by the International Business Brokers Association and M&A Source as a top business broker and M&A advisor for nine consecutive years.
Jeff has sold businesses across the state of Texas, in many different lines of business, to private equity firms, family groups, competitors and buyers from outside the country. That range is what he brings to an owner: an understanding of what different kinds of buyers pay for, and why the same company can look very different depending on who is across the table.
How Jeff works with owners
Every engagement starts in the same place: what is the business actually worth? Jeff's first conversation with an owner is about valuation, and about why the owner wants to sell and what they want to accomplish. An owner who wants out in a year and an owner who wants to stay on for three are not selling the same business, even if the numbers are identical.
From there, the conversation turns to the terms an owner should expect: seller financing, earnouts, retained equity, the transition period, key employees, and how customer and vendor concentration affect a buyer's view. Many of the owners Jeff works with have spent decades building their companies, and he takes care to make the process clear and as calm as a sale of a lifetime's work can be.
When it is time to find a buyer, Jeff often starts with like-kind companies: direct and regional competitors, and private equity groups that already own a business in the same line. Those buyers understand the business from the first meeting, and when the fit is right they can often justify a stronger price.
Who Jeff works with
Owners of privately held manufacturing, distribution and service businesses, typically with $500,000 to $3 million in annual EBITDA or seller's discretionary earnings, in Texas first. Most are thinking about an exit in the next few years, weighing an unsolicited approach, or simply want a realistic read on what their company is worth.
