Limousine & Passenger Transportation Business Valuation Benchmarks

Business owners, prospective buyers, and industry investors rely on a diverse set of financial benchmarks to assess the value of a business. We have compiled data from current BizBuySell listings and sold businesses to provide insight into the business for sale market and important benchmarks for pricing and evaluating limo and passenger transportation companies relative to industry standards.

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Highlights of Limo & Passenger Transportation Businesses Sold on BizBuySell

Limo and passenger transportation businesses listed and sold on BizBuySell are privately owned businesses providing limousine, shuttle, taxi, and related passenger transport serivices for leisure, business, and personal travel.

Limo & Passenger Transportation Business Transaction Trends

Median sale price of limousine and passenger transport businesses listed and sold on BizBuySell surged in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, as many larger businesses sold while business ground to a halt. Since that time, sale prices have returned to a five-year median around $500,000, though rising interest rates did depress sale prices in 2023.

Limo & Passenger Transport Business Valuation Multiples

Valuation, or pricing, multiples are financial tools that allow for comparisons between businesses that have different levels of sales and financial performance. They represent the sales price of a business relative to its revenue or earnings, and given enough individual business sales data, they represent what the market is willing to pay for a business given its revenue and earnings.

Valuation Trends

Business values and associated multiples fluctuate over time, influenced by a variety of macroeconomic factors such as interest rates, inflation, consumer spending, and overall economic growth. Valuation multiples of limo and passenger transportation businesses sold spiked in 2020, driven by larger businesses selling - larger businesses tend to sell at higher multiples. Since then, both revenue and earnings multiples returned to more typical levels, with a dip in 2023 attributed to rising interest rates which drove up the cost of business acquisition financing.

Earnings Multiples

Earnings multiples represent the value of a business relative to its owner’s discretionary earnings or "cash flow". Arguably the most important valuation metric - as seller's discretionary earnings will often dictate how much a buyer is able to borrow to finance the business acquisition - business valuations tend to hinge on a reasonable earnings multiple.

Revenue Multiples

Revenue multiples represent the value of a business relative to its overall sales or revenue. In conjunction with an earnings analysis, revenue multiples are commonly used to value a business based on its overall sales.

How to Interpret These Multiples

Recent Listings vs. Sold Businesses

We calculate and provide valuation multiples from two sources: Current and recent listings of limo and passenger transportation businesses for sale, and our database of "comparable" businesses sold on BizBuySell. Multiples based on listing data are always higher due to owners setting asking prices above what their businesses might typically sell for. This occurs either intentionally as a negotiation strategy, or incidentally due to business owners’ common tendency to overvalue their own businesses.

Multiples based on comparable businesses - "comps" in business broker parlance - are much more useful as they represent the prices at which businesses ultimately get sold. Business brokers and valuation professionals will always turn to local comps when pricing businesses for sale or evaluating businesses for acquisition. We provide both sets of data at the national level to offer general context.

Quartiles, Median, and Average

No two businesses are identical, and as such, valuation multiples exist in a range. We have carved out four common values within this range: Lower quartile represents the value under which the lowest 25% of valuation multiples fell. Upper quartile represents the value above which the highest 25% of multiples fell. Median is the middle of the range, and average is the mean of the set. Mean is almost always higher than the median, driven by a minority of high volume, high value businesses sold at multiples above the upper quartile.

Businesses with consistent financial performance, above average revenue and earnings, demonstrable growth potential, low owner involvement, unique competitive advantages, and a seller willing to finance will command a multiple at or above the upper quartile. Lower volume businesses with thin profit margins, full-time owner involvement, and many direct competitors will trade at or below the lower quartile. Most businesses will fall somewhere in the middle.

Based on this data, half limousine and passenger transport businesses are valued and sold between 1.7 and 2.94 times their annual seller discretionary earnings, with 25% of well-run, larger companies trading above this range, and 25% of smaller, less desirable businesses trading below.

Financial Benchmarks

To determine how a business compares in terms of sales volume and financial performance relative to industry peers, it’s necessary to have some insight into industry standards. "Benchmarking" describes the practice of comparing a business’s financial performance to typical industry standards to determine where a business falls relative to other businesses in the same industry. These benchmarks can help guide business owners and buyers towards appropriate valuation multiples from the range above.

To that end, we have aggregated financial ranges of limo and passenger transportation business sold on BizBuySell that can be useful for comparing a given business to the market.

Limousine & Passenger Transportation Business Revenue and Earnings Trends

Median reported revenue and earnings of limousine and passenger transportation businesses sold on BizBuySell spiked in 2020, driven by a surge in larger businesses selling during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, financials have returned to more typical levels, though profits appear to be strengthening according to rising reported owner discretionary earnings. Passenger transportation is rising among the most profitable types of small business.

Earnings Ranges

Discretionary earnings (used interchangeably with the terms "cash flow" and seller's discretionary earnings or SDE) is often the crux of business valuations, so it is important to benchmark it relative to other similar businesses traded on the business for sale market. Below you will find discretionary earnings ranges of limo and passenger transportation businesses sold over the past five years, as well as recent business for sale listings.

Revenue Ranges

Revenue volume plays a large role in business valuation, as it measures the size of the potential income opportunity for new ownership. It's not uncommon for buyers to select an earnings multiple range based on overall revenue volume. The table below includes revenue ranges of passenger transportation businesses sold over the past five years and recent companies listed for sale.

How Revenue and Earnings Level Affects Business Values

Obviously, higher levels of earnings lead to higher valuations, even given the same multiple. However, valuation multiples also tend to rise with business sales volume. Limo and passenger transportation companies that consistently generate higher sales (and maintain benchmark profit margins) tend to sell for earnings multiples on the higher end. So, a limousine company generating over $1.3MM in revenue may sell for an earnings multiple of 3 or higher, while a smaller business with sales below $350k may trade closer to 1.7 times its owner's discretionary earnings.

This tendency for higher sales volumes to fetch higher valuation multiples is largely driven by the economics of business acquisition financing. Businesses with greater revenue and earnings give buyers more cushion to cover debt service obligations and still have enough left over to pay the new owner a reasonable income.

Transport Sector Comparisons

For a more complete understanding of the market and valuation standards, consider comparisons within the broader transportation and storage category when benchmarking transportation companies. The chart and table below include key metrics from sales of select transportation businesses on BizBuySell.

Among businesses listed under transportation, passenger transportation businesses tend to generate lower average revenues, and so sell at lower valuation multiples. Buyers of these businesses will generally pay higher multiples for businesses that generate above average sales - the bigger the better.

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