Do You Know what your Pawn Shop Business is worth?

Why should YOU know what YOUR Pawn Shop Business is worth?

I have been asked that question quite a bit in times of recent and throughout my extensive career in the Pawn Shop Industry.

Pawnshop Consulting Group

Aside from providing pawnshop consulting services to more than 600+ clients in more than 40 countries around the world, the Pawnshop Consulting Group has also provided hundreds of valuations over the past 20+ years in my role as the owner of PCG.

Prior to forming PCG, I owned, operated, managed, bought and sold stores and a whole lot more with my prior 29 years in the industry before forming PCG officially back in 2001.

Understanding what your business is worth can serve a variety of purposes.

Acquisitions Of Pawn Shops are IN Demand

I am happy to report that acquisitions are starting to heat up again here in the Western Hemisphere of North and South America.

There are a number of reasons for this.

The public companies have to continuously satisfy their shareholders with continuous growth in both – earnings and door knobs as we say is one, coupled with a number of very well-funded private groups that are also acquiring pawn shops at an increasing pace.

Seems that special equity groups and private financing platforms are expanding their access to capital and are investing in Pawn Shops at an increasing pace.

Acquisition Race for Pawn Shops

The initial acquisition race for Pawn Shops began back in about 1990 as public money came pouring into our industry in the form of publicly traded Pawn Companies like Cash America, First Cash and EZ Corp.

In the last 30 years, hundreds of stores on multiple continents have been acquired and started up with the insatiable desire to continuously grow these companies and the markets they serve.

In 2016 Cash America and First Cash merged in a tax-free stock swap valued at 950 million dollars at that time.

Today – First Cash operates more than 2600+ stores on two continents and continues to grow.

Less Pawn Shops Exist as a result of these activities

Many of the more desirable independent and multi-store operators have been swallowed up over this past 30+ years by acquisitions – resulting in less stores available for acquisition.

Pawnshop Consulting Group – Roles in the Merger and Acquisition Space

Acting on behalf of myself and now with Pawnshop Consulting Group, we have been involved in the mergers & acquisitions side of the Pawn Shop Industry for several decades.

Through my various management and operational roles along with the consulting roles, I have been directly involved in the activity of buying, selling, and representing more than 250+ store transactions for deals totaling over 100 million dollars throughout my career in the Pawn Shop Industry.

In the past 20 + years Pawnshop Consulting Group specifically has been involved in providing hundreds of valuation opinions for our growing global client base, as well acquiring and selling of stores.

Valuations are an important aspect of knowing your business value potential in complete detail.

We have found many in our industry lack the full understanding of their key performance indicators, the metrics in general, and may not have any idea what the value proposition of the business is either.

Valuations have become increasingly important for a host of reasons, some of those would include

• Determining fair market value of the business in general
• Potentially selling the Pawn Shop business to some of the acquiring groups, or other
• Establishing fair market value for conventional financing and enhanced banking relationships
• Establishing guidelines for management or ownership disposition changes
• Partnership dissolutions
• Estate planning
• Retirement planning
• Divorce proceedings
• Properly evaluating the businesses for family inheritance, or succession plans

These are some of the most common reasons that many of our clients have sought out our services.

Considering Selling Your Pawn Shop Business

Pawnshop Consulting Group remains an industry leader in this field and has for a long while.

Directly and indirectly PCG has created much of our own competition in the consulting and acquisitions arena. It’s no secret that PCG has been out here for more than 20 years and brought many other souls in our industry together for the many events we have produced over the years from our Crossover Expo’s, our International Pawn Symposiums, the Industry’s only Focus Groups, management camps, and much more.

I have been told emulation is the best form of flattery in my 60+ years of life here on planet earth.

Determining fair market value of the Pawn Shop

Determining the potential fair market value of the Pawn Shop business in general is great knowledge to have for any operator from our experience.

One direct benefit is that it sets the mindset for the owners and operators as to what the true potential value of their hard work and labor looks like in today’s world.

Low Lying Fruit

AS part of our discovery processes when consulting or valuating any client or potential opportunity, we FIND low lying fruit in many of the businesses we have worked with.

Translation – Many operators are not operating at their full potential as we have seen from the hundreds of clients we have worked with around the world.

AS part of our pawn shop consulting role, our primary function in that space has always been about enhancing the performance of all the clients operations that we have had the privilege to work with.

We operate on the KISS principle in that regard when providing Pawn Shop Consulting Services.

Our three main objectives are as follows:

• Put more money in the bank for our clients
• Enhance the income potentials for ALL team members within the organization
• Work to create a harmonious work environment where people want to show up, and give a 100% of support on their end all for common goals

In regards to the Low-Lying Fruit, as part of our services in the pawn shop valuation arena our comprehensive assessments provide an extensive amount of performance data and illustrates both – strength and weaknesses in the operation we may be assessing.

Acting as a representative for our clients wishing to sell their businesses, we do witness a number of value enhancing techniques for most of our clients that can be applied to enhance the overall value of the businesses to potential buyers.

This is a win win scenario as our role here is to obtain the most money and or favorable terms possible for clients that we have the opportunity to represent who desire to sell their businesses.

Pawn Shop Owners Representative

When PCG has the privilege to represent Pawn Deals we take on the full role for our clients, these services include:

• Apply all performance enhancing techniques possible to bring market values up
  • These include a comprehensive scrub of non-recurring expenses at the store (levels) to illustrate income potentials
  • Apply operational techniques to trim and maximize the performance of the assets (loans/inventory/layaways) to name a few
• Finding suitable buyers to buy the operations
• Act as the seller’s agent when negotiating all aspects of a business transition, negotiations typically include:
  • Asset Purchase Agreements
  • Bill of Sale
  • Non-competes
  • Potential lease agreements (where property is wholly owned by seller)
  • Transfer assistance of all permits, licenses, etc.
  • Income Tax Saving Provisions

Establishing fair market value for conventional financing and enhanced banking relationships

Increasingly – Pawnshop Consulting Group has been providing evaluation services for our growing client base to enhance the relationships they may have with their primary banks, bankers, or lending institutions.

When financial institutions understand the FMV or fair market values of what these businesses could be worth, in many instances we see lending and or lines of credit are more often enhanced for clients that have good financials.

Establishing guidelines for management or ownership disposition changes

From my personal experience and as a consultant, we are witnessing more groups and operators out there that desire to allow for management and or ownership changes to occur within their operations internally.

Having solid Pawn Shop business evaluations in place can enhance the overall value perceptions of the business and to help insure everyone receives a fair hand in what the value expectations are of the business in general. Clear understanding of expectation for any potential negotiations.

Partnership dissolutions

Partnership dissolutions have been on the rise in times of recent, and again, having solid business pawn shop evaluations in place helps to minimize either the lack of understanding, or expectation that may exist between any partners involved together in any business. Relationships can change overtime and this can lead to dissolutions in some cases.

Estate planning

Being a victim of violence on a personal level, our family was handed some very difficult estate issues and more that our immediate family all had to work through.

Having solid family estate planning is essential in attempting to preserve the assets and equity of whatever assets may have been accumulated during any particular family or family members life cycle.

The tax consequences can be severe to paralyzing if proper planning is not put in place well in advance of any unforeseen events that could, or would happen. Protect your assets and or the lifelong work of your efforts, or your family’s efforts with solid estate planning, this is some of the most important advice I could ever offer as a consultant.

Properly evaluating the businesses for family inheritance, or succession plans

AS a continuum of solid estate planning, determining fair market value of businesses for family inheritance or succession plans is just good business sense. We have witnessed numerous clients over the years that had family members in some cases that became too ill to work or passed away quickly.

It is at times like that these that having the Pawn Shop evaluation process of the business together well ahead of time makes any potential transition smoother for all remaining family members and or survivors.

Again, solid estate planning is a MUST!

Retirement planning

Increasingly we have been witnessing more of our clients are more focused on their retirement planning. What options do they have, how much will it cost to retire and live on and more.

At Pawnshop Consulting Group and PawnTrain, we are helping more and more operators set up their operations on auto-pilot with good management teams and systems in place that can allow our owners and operators to experience a better quality of life starting today.

Understanding the performance, retirement expectations, and the value of the business is very important when exploring the retirement options going forward, and PCG and PT are here to help.

Divorce proceedings

Unfortunately, there are times when family-owned businesses are plagued with separation and or divorce. Having a clear understanding of what the business is worth well ahead of time may assist in defining on what the correct actions could be when faced with this life changing dilemma.

Again, Pawnshop Consulting Group is here to assist.

Conclusion

In the end, having an up-to-date evaluation of your pawn shop business can be good for many reasons including the ones’ listed above. Please do not hesitate to reach out to PCG for any additional information on any and all of the above if we may be of service, we are here to help!

 

Jerry Whitehead
Pawnshop Consulting Group, LLC.
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www.pawntrain.com