Mergers & Acquisitions: Better Together

Have you ever felt the urge to sell your title agency, but you don’t know what it’s worth or where to start? Or are you on the flip side and curious about expanding by buying a title agency?

From an agency seller’s perspective, let’s face it, it’s been one heck of a five-year run in the title industry and valuations are very strong. Unfortunately, some title agency owners may not have a well-thought-out exit strategy. There may not be any family members who wish to continue the legacy, and there may also be a lack of interest from employees who do not have the coin to buy the company. On top of that, technology changes and regulatory matters may be difficult for a title agency owner to keep up with. So, what do you do? How do you prepare?

On the other side of the table are hungry buyers who may be looking to plant capital or expand their already existing title empire. These companies may have technological advances and can scale up into a new market quickly and easily. But they need sellers. And this is where all the good times begin.

When a willing seller meets an anxious buyer, it provides for an interesting back and forth over valuation with discussions over earn-outs, net income multiples, EBITDA and other words that spell F-U-N. But it doesn’t end when the parties agree on a price. What about financing, the office staff, the office building itself, the physical assets, the training, the new infrastructure costs of consolidation?

Craig Haskins, chief operating officer at Knight Barry Title; Quinn Stufflebeam, chief executive officer of Title Financial Corp.; and Juan Guzman, a member of Houlihan Lokey's Corporate Finance business and Financial Institutions Group, will discuss this topic during the session “Mergers & Acquisitions: Better Together” at ALTA ONE. Heck, if you can get these guys to put the microphone down, there will even be time for audience Q&A. Click here to register for ALTA ONE.