IBA celebrated a year of high performance and professional excellence with a holiday event at John’s Grill,www.johnsgrillmukilteo.com, on Thursday, December 12. The event recognized, accompanied by excellent food, beverages, and camaraderie, the market leading number of transactions successfully facilitated by our large, talented team of mergers & acquisitions intermediaries serving 22 different industries (https://ibainc.com/industries-served/) in the Pacific Northwest. 2019 was my 19th year as the President & CEO of IBA and I can honestly say that entering 2020 I have the best team of brokers, executive management, and support personnel since I purchased the business from the founder, G. William Ososke. I am also looking forward to mentoring and introducing to the business community the two new business brokers that have accepted offers to join the firm next year. They will allow us to expand our representation into two new areas.

I am also pleased to announce that the recipient of IBA’s Broker of the Year Award for 2019 was Curt Maier. Curt Maier, IBA’s Vice President of Business Development, did an exceptional job in 2019 creating brand awareness, introducing entrepreneurs to our unique professional service offering, and developing collaborative, professional and referral partners for IBA regionally and on a national basis. His professional association engagements on behalf of the firm in 2019 included CAMPS (camps-us.com/), MBAKS (www.mbaks.com), CCIM (www.ccim.com), NWFBA (www.nwfba.org), and BTA (www.businesstransitionadvisors.org). If you have not had a cup of coffee with Curt, I encourage you to grab one in 2020 to see how we can work together toward collaborative achievement.

In closing, the IBA team is looking for new companies to sell in 2020. The business brokerage marketplace remains robust (We have 7 transactions in escrow pending sale for the next couple of weeks) and we would welcome the opportunity to provide an overview of our client services if a retirement sale is desired next year.