Visiting a farmer’s market during the summer and autumn in the Pacific Northwest is a wonderful experience. Trips down the aisles find a bounty of fresh vegetables, fruit, baked goods, honey, meat, fish, and a spectrum of other products from locally owned farms, foragers, manufacturers, and artisans. Lines of buyers often assemble to purchase the quality items offered for sale.
The marketplace for privately held companies and family businesses facilitated by IBA over the last couple of months had a similar dynamic with superior quality products from a wide selection of industries on our shelves and motivated, appreciative, good faith negotiating buyers eager to complete transactions. As has occurred in the past at IBA, the transactions we completed and continue to work on with targeted closings in Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 were of six, seven, or eight figures in enterprise value and professionally facilitated out of one of our eight offices in Washington & Oregon. Twelve different business sale intermediaries at IBA completed transactions between June 1 and the end of September. Four more who did not complete transactions in that period are scheduled to complete transactions before the end of the year when they get deals currently in escrow across the finish line.
The following are a selection of examples of the transactions professionally facilitated by IBA business sale intermediaries in this recent period:
Manufacturing
Graybeal Signs (http://www.graybealsigns.com/) – A community favorite sign manufacturer serving the Wenatchee area.
Bridgetown Brew Systems (https://www.bridgetownbrew.com/) – A market leading manufacturing & design company specializing in copper & stainless steel spirt & beer production systems.
Vape Jet (https://vape-jet.com/) – The manufacturer of innovative, state of the art equipment for filling vape and dab containers. A strength of IBA is our ability to value and negotiate strong market terms for growing companies. Vape-Jet was the 36th fastest growing company in Oregon & Southwest Washington according to the Portland Business Journal between 2021 – 2023 (https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2024/09/16/private-100-fastest-growing-by-the-numbers-2024.html).
We also merged Artistic Digitizing and Embroidery into Adams Screenprint (https://www.adams-screenprint.com/), a company we had previously sold in an industry where we have completed dozens of transactions over the last fifty years as a firm.
Service
No Stress No Stigma (https://nostressnostigma.com/) – A highly respected, technology forward telehealth company addressing the mental health needs of a world dealing with the aftermath of a pandemic, the stress of relationships, and anxiety created from living in a turbulent world where uncontrollable economic forces can change a person’s reality in a short time.
Craters & Freighters (https://www.cratersandfreightersseattle.com/) – A national footprint franchised shipping & logistics company specializing in the movement of art, science equipment, and technology.
ICON-BIM (https://www.icon-bim.com/) – A Building Information Modeling company specializing in hospitals, stadiums, microchip fabrication facilities, and other sophisticated construction projects employing a union workforce across the United States.
Retail
The Quilting Bee (https://quiltingbeespokane.com/) – A multiple million-dollar revenue, regional destination store for sewing enthusiasts.
Rochester Lumber True Value (https://www.rochesterlumber.net/) – A destination lumberyard and hardware store serving the Olympia/Centralia merged into the Parr Lumber chain (https://parr.com/)
Industrial Applied Electric (https://iaebend.com/) – A fifty-year-old industrial supply and repair company specializing in electrical equipment and components for the logging, mining, and construction industries.
Circle & Square Auto Care (https://www.circleandsquare.com/) – A trusted, quality auto repair facility on the Olympic Peninsula.
IBA, as a licensed commercial real estate firm in both Washington & Oregon, also represented numerous clients in the sale of the real estate associated with their privately held companies and family businesses during the last couple of months. IBA is one of the few firms in the region that has the ability to represent both business and real estate assets for its clients with market leading knowledge, experience, and skill.
2024 is an election year. In the world of business, people vote with their dollars related to the products and services they appreciate and value. The companies that have a positive year over year trend in terms of revenue growth traditionally are providing something that is valued in their communities. IBA is blessed to have a large group of past clients, attorneys, accountants, real estate brokers, bankers, wealth advisors, and other professionals who encourage entrepreneurs to meet with IBA when they are thinking about selling or buying a privately held company, family business, or franchise. My parents taught me early in life, you only get one reputation. Protect it by working hard, being knowledgeable, and always acting with integrity. That guidance has been weaved into IBA’s corporate fabric since I bought the firm from its founder, G. William Ososke, in 2000. I encourage all potential customers and referral partners to read our reviews before making the decision to work with IBA: https://ibainc.com/about-iba/google-reviews/. I am also proud to share that IBA was named one of the fastest growing private companies on the Eastside by the Puget Sound Business Journal this summer for the period 2021 – 2023 (https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/subscriber-only/2024/08/16/eastside-fastest-growing-private-companies.html). Thank you for voting for IBA by trusting us to sell your businesses. It should be noted that the growth looks better than it is in reality because it was built off of the platform of a slow 2020 & 2021 due to the 100 year event pandemic that swept across the Pacific Northwest and world during that period.
If you are thinking about selling a business in 2025 anywhere in Washington or Oregon, we would welcome the opportunity to meet with you, learn about your business, exit strategy objectives, and provide you with an overview of IBA’s professional services. All conversations with IBA are held in strict confidence. IBA offers potential clients a complimentary market value opinion of their business and associated real estate as a method of sharing our knowledge, experience, and auditioning for the job of being your business broker. We also as a firm do not ask for any retainers, administrative fees, or consulting payments. It is our desire to only be paid by satisfied customers who have achieved their transaction objectives and successfully completed their sale process. Soon the farmer’s markets will be gone for the season. They will be replaced by holiday bazaars. If you want to sell your business this winter, we would welcome the opportunity to persuasively share its attributes with the customers who visit our stall in pursuit of an investment or career path change opportunity for the new year.
IBA, the Pacific Northwest’s premier business brokerage firm since 1975, is available as an information resource to the media, business brokerage, mergers & acquisitions, real estate, legal, accounting, banking, and wealth management communities on subjects relevant to the purchase & sale of privately held companies and family businesses. IBA is recognized as one of the best business brokerage firms in the nation based on its long track record of successfully negotiating “win-win” business sale transactions in environments of full disclosure employing “best practices”.