Get your business valuation service started here & now!
Our business valuation services provide business owners, sellers, buyers, and professionals with reliable information to make life-changing decisions.
Killer business valuation services
We understand that your business is your passion and livelihood, and that's why it's important to have an accurate understanding of its value. Our business valuation services are geared to help you with that.
With our comprehensive business valuation services, you'll get an in-depth analysis of your company's financial health, peer performance, and growth potential. Our valuation experts will use their years of experience to provide you with an accurate and detailed report that you can use to make informed decisions about the future of your business.
Our business valuation reports look beyond the numbers
For decades, the debate has raged: Is business valuation a science or an art?
We believe there are elements of science, blended with an art, that should both be present in a properly argued, described, and presented business valuation.
Your business valuation must be demonstrated with all its workings, assumptions, and rationales. And that is where our strength lies - honed since 2002, serving the valuation requirements of small and medium size businesses in South Africa.
Our business valuations make sense
What's possible with our business valuation service?
Too many business valuation services deliver price, not value.
We give you both.
Performance data for your business compared to the latest data nationally, and in your business's industry.
Prepare for your negotiation by understanding why your asking price offers good value!
We are subscribed to the tenets of the Uniform Standards of Appraisal Practice.
Get to the point in your negotiations by pitching your business correctly from the start. Then concentrate on the quality of buyer and the terms they offer.
Why see dozens of buyers who all go away thinking the asking price is too high?
Pitching your business for sale too low takes money away from your future.
This is toothpaste you can't push back into the tube because once the low asking price is out there, it's never going to go up.
Business Valuation Services
Every business has a unique DNA of valuation determinants. We call them "key valuation indicators" (KVIs). The KVI score dictates things like multipliers, in some calculations, and discounts in others. The KVI score will point to key expected metrics in the business, and give us a basis for adjusting financial statements where necessary.
The Suitegum Business Valuation tests the business for 23 broad indicators and hundreds of sub-indicators - 957 in all. We examine a potential 1300 relationships between KVIs and how they could affect the key performance indicators of the business.
You will not get this attention in an online business valuation
Look, if you're getting a valuation for a business you want to sell, buy, or hold, you're talking about life-altering events. Surely you want to talk it through with someone, and not just dump some numbers into boxes on a web page?
We interview each and every business we value.
Customer testimonials
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Mark gave me a valuation on my business. A business broker gave me a much higher valuation. We pitched to three different buyers, and one made an offer on the broker’s valuation. However, after the due diligence the buyer expressed unhappiness with the price. We ended up settling at Mark’s valuation.
Barbara Hilton-Barber
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If you are looking for a professional, Mark Corke from Suitegum is your man.
Renier Richter
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The professionalism and the expertise provided by Mark and his team far surpasses any previous experiences that we have encountered through business brokers..
Chris de Wet
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Many, many thanks for the valuation. I am so grateful for having found you on “Google”.
Beth Wallace
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I know that if you're looking for a more accurate valuation, the best thing you can do is speak to someone like Mark for proper, professional advice.
Peter Smythe
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We met Mark years ago (2010) through Peter Carruthers. We found his advice and help invaluable.
Margi and Dick Bate
What makes our business valuation service different?
What does that mean? Well, we’re not going to flatter you with an inflated result. It also means that we won’t be chasing you with “a potential buyer” in the coming weeks and months.
Our business valuation techniques do not rely only on your financial statements. We designed our interview process help us understand the subject business. You know where it has been, and where it is going. That story is important to uncover both hidden value and breaking points.
The Suitegum Business Valuation protocol includes pure income-based valuation, balance sheet considerations, and market comparison techniques.
We subscribe to pure industry data, including performance data for your peers. So there will be no “generally accepted multiples” nonsense. If your business lags or exceeds the norms for your industry, we will show you how, where, and why.
The price we quote is what you pay. We are do not subscribe to the notion that the cost of the valuation should be linked to the result. I mean, what is that? And why wouldn't it tempt valuers to inflate values? It is a preposterous pricing strategy.
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My company had previously received two valuations from accounting firms with an enormous disparity in the results. It was clear that they had only used our financial statements without looking at the myriad of other factors that make up a business.
Mark has a far more holistic approach which takes into account over 30 valuation indicators to produce an unbiased and realistic assessment of a company's true market value.
I cannot thank Mark enough for going the extra mile in completing the report for us on time
and for all his valuable insights.
Jeremy Robinson
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Mark, just a note to say thanks. I like the presentation and the justification for the value given. We expect this to become an annual thing and we will do it again at about the same time next year.
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The Suitegum business valuation, in my experience, is a robust business valuation mechanism which is easily understandable and completely transparent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Oh, you better believe it! Did we mention anywhere that this is a professional exercise? In fact we want the annual financial statements for the last five years, or if your business is younger than that, for as far back as you have.
There may be other related information which we may ask you for at the interview.
If you are the person running the business, and know about all the decisions on a day to day basis, then it would be very surprising if you don't have all the information in your head. The worst case scenario is that you may have to dig out something after we're done.
Good question! We have done most of our business valuation interviews by phone, Skype, or Zoom for years. It has always made more sense. There is no need for either of us to sit in traffic, dodge the inquisitive receptionist, or drink one another's lousy coffee.
Of course the Covid pandemic, regardless of your stance on masks, vaccines, or nano-chips, has made the Zoom or Whatsapp call much more acceptable. The only difference is that everybody is doing it now, and we have better equipment.
A few photos around your business will fill in the gaps. And if it is easier to talk after hours, I won't be late for supper if I have to nip into my study for an hour.
Of course. We can talk to you on your own, with other members of the board or the C-Suite, an attorney, your accountant, or your jealous cat. If you feel they need to be there for any reason, we have no problem with that.
That happens.
Particularly if the reader dives into the last page to see the answer, and it is far from their expectations! But on a proper read they usually see the sense in our reasoning.
We act in total independence of the feelings of whoever reads the report. There is no benefit to us in inflating the result to win a mandate to sell any business. We are independent of all business broker groups, investment banks, private equity funds, banks (urgh), attorneys or accountants.
This also means we never accept kick-backs, "spotter-comms", or other form of secret profit. The practice is unethical, potentially compromising, and even illegal in some circumstances.
So we have no incentive to lean one way or the other.
Of course. We're not infallible. Sometimes we make mistakes, although with the care, and multiple touch-points in our process, glaring errors are very rare. If we need to revisit something which we misunderstood, of course we'll make good on it. And there will be no charge for that.
Not at all. But we know where the holes are. Actually if accountants do things properly, our job is very easy. We get great pleasure from dealing with properly compiled annual financial statements (which balance!) with all the proper notes and statements in place.
Annual financial statements are designed for non-accountants, and are easy to deal with.
Suitegum Business Valuations has been a thing for 20 years. Since the lead-up to the implementation of capital gains tax in South Africa on 1 October 2001, to be exact.
Before that, my first evaluative roles started as a young officer in the SADF, sitting on the board evaluating the capacities of soldiers to become non-commissioned officers, junior officers, or remain as privates for the time-being.
Once my time was served, I joined Nedbank as their first job-evaluation specialist, tasked with grading the jobs of all the managers in the bank, from branches to head-office and the special emerging arms of the most proactive bank at the time. That was the last formal employment I had.
In 1990 I established a computer security company with some friends. I started, bought, sold, and crashed several businesses in various industries for ten years.
I was screwed over several times, which forced me to concentrate on the legalities of contracts of sale and company laws. By then I was helping other people buy and sell businesses, and a few years later when capital gains tax was introduced in South Africa, I took the valuation gap. And here we are.
No.
Next question?
You, over there...
We probably do. But we refresh ourselves all the time, usually through the interview. If your industry is unique, emerging, or obscure we will learn about it with you.
Which leads to "what do you know about my business?" We take the stance of starting afresh with a clean slate for every business we run through our valuation process. Preconceived ideas lead to mistakes which can be costly.
And it would be embarrassing to say I have done your sort of business before, when the central tenet in our marketing is that no business is identical to any other!
Oh, I insist on it. You will notice there is no provision here for you to give anybody credit card details. Our business valuations don't work like that. Fill in the form, and I will call you within a few hours. We will discuss your needs and the application. You will have, by then, received our business valuation product sheet so we can have an informed discussion. There is no charge or obligation for that call.