Stop running it in thirty days.Get paid for the next ten years.

Most owners have two options and both of them are bad

The first is to spend three to five years making the business ready to sell, then long enough to prove the changes worked. The second is to go to market as you are, where the business either does not sell or sells on terms you regret.

There is a third. Sell now, at a number agreed before anything starts, with no cleanup and no preparation, and take the payments over ten years instead of at closing.

How it works

1. We agree on a price. One number, in writing, based on what your company actually earns. You clean nothing up first and pay nobody to prepare the business for sale.
2. We close in thirty days. From the day we sign a short agreement to the day we take over is thirty days. Not six months, not a year.
3. You stop running it. We bring in our own professional manager. You are not asked to stay and operate it. If you want to help with introductions or advice we would welcome it, entirely on your terms.
4. You get paid every month for ten years. Each year you receive half the cash the business produces after paying its bills and its own debts. When the business does better, your check goes up, and a floor keeps it from falling below the interest owed on what we still owe you.
5. You get the rest at year ten. Whatever is still owed on the agreed price is paid in one final payment at the end of the tenth year.

What protects you, and what it costs

You are not trusting us. You hold a legal claim on the company's assets ranking ahead of everyone else, filed publicly, the same position a bank takes when it lends. If we stop paying, you take the business back. You receive audited statements each year and may hire your own accountant to check our math, at our expense if we are wrong.

The honest trade

You take half the cash for ten years instead of all of it, and you stop working. If you still enjoy running your company and intend to keep driving it, keep it: you will do better, and we will tell you so.

This is for the owner who is done, whose business would slowly decline over another ten years run on half his old energy. That is usually what happens, and it is what makes doing nothing more expensive than it looks.

Why most companies like yours never sell

Not because they are bad businesses. McKinsey looked at the roughly 510,000 small and mid-sized American businesses that exited the market in 2022 and found that ninety-two percent of them closed. Five percent sold. Three percent went to a family member or another new owner. Closing, not selling, is what usually happens.

The reason is not a shortage of buyers. It is a shortage of deals that can be financed. A bank acquisition loan asks a buyer for a large cash down payment and asks him to pledge everything he owns personally, and most capable buyers will not sign that. Seller financing is the obvious answer, and McKinsey found that it stays rare because there is no standard way to do one. Private equity, meanwhile, rarely looks below twenty-five million dollars, which leaves companies your size outside the market it serves.

There is a second reason, and it is quieter. A business often fails to sell because an outsider cannot read it. The numbers live in your head rather than on paper.

We built our company for both problems. The Annuity Sale is a standard seller-financed structure, written the same way every time, which is why we can agree a price in a conversation and close in thirty days. And we read the business ourselves. We do not ask you to make it presentable first.

The next step

A twenty minute conversation. No documents, no financial statements, no preparation. You tell us about the business, and we tell you plainly whether it fits. If it does not, we say so on the call.

Kevin W. Massengill, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman +1 (728) 220-0776
KMassengill@Meraglim.com

Are you an advisor with a client in this position?

Common questions

What owners ask us first

What is the Meraglim Annuity Sale?

It is a sale in which the price is paid out of the business over ten years instead of in a lump sum at closing. You agree a price up front, we take over the company in thirty days and put our own manager in, and you receive payments for the next decade: half the cash the business generates each year, plus a final payment at the end of year ten for whatever is still owed. You stop running the business on day one.

Why is there no cash at closing?

Because the money comes out of the business over time rather than from a bank. That is what lets us close in thirty days, skip the diligence, and buy companies a financing buyer would walk away from. It is also the trade: you accept payment over time, and in exchange you avoid the cleanup, the process, and the real possibility that no sale happens at all.

How am I actually paid?

Each year you receive half the cash the business produces after it pays its bills and its own debts. If it produces a million dollars of cash, you receive five hundred thousand that year. When the business does better, your check goes up. A floor keeps it from falling below the interest owed on the outstanding balance. Payments are monthly and are recalculated every quarter on the prior twelve months, so a slow season or a one-off equipment purchase does not swing your income. At the end of year ten, whatever remains of the agreed price is paid in a single final payment.

How is the price determined?

By what the business can actually pay. We look at what it earns, what it needs to keep running, and what it can sustainably send you over ten years without putting the company at risk. We do not apply a fixed multiple off a table, and we will not agree a number the business cannot service, because a price it cannot carry damages you as much as it damages us. You are the lender in this structure. We show you the arithmetic before anything is signed, and if you want your accountant to check it, we will send it to him directly.

What if you stop paying?

You hold a first claim on the company's assets, filed publicly. If payments stop you can take the business back. You also receive audited statements each year and can have your own accountant check the numbers.

What happens to my employees?

We are buying a working company and we need the people who make it work. We install our own manager at the top. We are not buying it to take it apart.

What about taxes?

Because you are paid over ten years rather than at once, you generally pay tax as the money arrives rather than in a single year. Part of each payment is treated as interest and taxed as ordinary income; the rest is treated as proceeds from the sale. Whether that is better or worse for you than a lump sum depends entirely on your own situation, and it is a real question rather than a rhetorical one. Ask your accountant. We do not give tax advice and would not want you to take ours.

Do I have to decide anything on the first call?

No. The first call is twenty minutes and its only purpose is to find out whether this fits. Most of the time we can tell you on that call.