Business Valuation: Why Buyers Ignore Your EBITDA Multiple - Mark Mills, OBE

<p>Business valuation isn&#39;t a multiple of EBITDA. Cop a copy of my new book NOW: <a href="https://ademolaodewade.com" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://ademolaodewade.com</a></p><p>Turn expertise into paid advisory work — Ethos (paid link): <a href="https://agent.askethos.com/refer/nd01w7e2eelw" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://agent.askethos.com/refer/nd01w7e2eelw</a></p><p>AI labs pay highly-skilled experts — Mercor (paid link): <a href="https://t.mercor.com/neABb" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://t.mercor.com/neABb</a></p><p>Build the buyer deck in minutes — Gamma (paid link): <a href="https://try.gamma.app/f2d4kygskm1h" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://try.gamma.app/f2d4kygskm1h</a></p><p>Mark Mills OBE started Cardpoint plc from scratch in 2000. Two years later it floated on AIM at a £7 million valuation. By 2006 it was turning over £100 million a year on £19.8 million of EBITDA, and he exited in 2007 at £175 million.</p><p>He now sells other people&#39;s businesses. One owner was told his company was worth £3 million. Mark sold it for just over £10 million. Nothing changed in the accounts — what changed was who the business was presented to, and why they needed it.</p><p>In this episode:</p><p>- Why bids from strategic buyers don&#39;t resemble a multiple of EBITDA</p><p>- The £3m-to-£10m sale, and the buyer maths that produced it</p><p>- Rule one of any business model: recurring income — learned from a payphone business that died in the 1991 recession</p><p>- How Mark and his CFO reverse-engineered £100m of revenue onto a sheet of paper, then landed within 2%</p><p>- Why &quot;in three years&quot; is a useless target and &quot;by 31 August 2029&quot; is not</p><p>- Solving a working capital problem by finding a bank with too much physical cash</p><p>- The one metric he never ignores when assessing a company for sale</p><p>- FARM — why people work for Fun, Achievement, Recognition, then Money, in that order</p><p>- Selling to strangers, and why referrals cannot scale a business</p><p>- What AI actually changes about client acquisition and KPI monitoring</p><p>- Realistic exit timelines: 12 to 30 months, not six</p><p>Mark&#39;s book is Making Your Mark: How I Built a Fortune From £1.50 — and You Can Too. </p><p>He offered listeners a free signed copy — email him at <a href="mark@mark.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">mark@mark.co.uk</a> with your