Here’s How Many Businesses Sold in Philly Last Year
It was a record number for the region.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA downtown city skyline. Sean Pavone | iStock
2017 was a record year nationally for the number of businesses bought and sold, according to a new report from BizBuySell, an online business for sale marketplace.
And Greater Philadelphia was no exception — the report found that a total of 209 deals were closed in the region. The deals were in at least four different industries, including retail and manufacturing, and asking prices for the businesses increased from the year before.
Here are some more highlights from the report:
Median sale prices were up.
Median sale price of businesses in Philadelphia at the end of 2017 was $300,000 (0.94 percent of the sale price on average) compared to $227,500 in 2016.
What buyers paid.
Business buyers paid on average 0.57 times revenue and 2.30 times cash flow in 2017, compared to 0.60 and 2.05 in 2016.
Businesses brought in more.
The businesses sold in 2017 had a median revenue of $612,000, up from $535,720 in 2016.
Cash flow was up.
Median cash flow for Philadelphia businesses sold was $157,000 compared to the median cash flow of $120,000 for the businesses sold in 2016.
The food industry saw the most deals.
Broken down by business type, 74 deals were in the restaurants category, 59 in service, 52 in retail, 9 in manufacturing and 15 deals were labeled as “other.”
A handful of deals were worth $1M or more.
Eleven percent or 24 of the 209 deals were priced at $1 million or more.
Andrew Turco is a research assistant at Philadelphia magazine. Additional reporting by Fabiola Cineas.
