We are an independent valuation and due-diligence firm. Buyers, sellers and lenders hire us on deals for operating companies that own things: plants, hotels, marinas, clinics, truck stops, food processors. One engagement gets the business valued, the real estate and equipment appraised, the market checked and the earnings tested. We don't broker deals and we never take a piece of one, so the fee is the same whether you close or walk.
You can renegotiate a price. You can't renegotiate a fact nobody checked.The standing rule of every Wert-Berater diligence engagement
When an acquisition goes badly, the price is usually not the reason. The reason is something nobody checked. An add-back that turns out to be the owner's salary. A top customer who was already shopping the account. A paint line that needs $400,000 of work before it can run the volume the projections assume. None of it was hidden. It just takes somebody with no stake in the closing to go looking, and enough time to be thorough.
That is the work we have done since 1998, across more than 4,000 engagements and $41.2 billion in project value, mostly for lenders and agencies who have to defend a credit decision to someone else. An acquisition gets the same treatment. What does the business really earn? What are the assets really worth? Will the market still be there in year four? And can the debt be paid in a bad year, not just a good one?
A full buy-side engagement covers all five of these. Plenty of clients hire us for one.
We define the trade area, count the demand and find out what competing capacity is already permitted or under construction. Our own research, not the seller's deck.
Which add-backs hold up and which don't. How much of the revenue sits with a handful of customers. What walks out the door with the owner. Whether the place is running near capacity or nowhere close.
Business valuation, real estate appraisal, equipment appraisal. Then the part that gets skipped: saying how much of the total belongs to each. That split drives collateral, loan term and your tax basis.
A ten-year pro forma, coverage and covenant headroom, and how senior debt, mezzanine, seller notes and earn-outs stack up. Then we try to break it: sensitivities, a rate shock, Monte Carlo, the bad year.
A ranked list of what could actually sink the thesis, plus the integration assumptions buried inside the price. Keep us on afterward and we track those same items against real results.
Any line below can be hired on its own, with its own scope letter and its own fixed fee. The timings assume we have the documents; the clock starts when the file is complete.
| Service | What it answers | Typical turnaround |
|---|---|---|
| Valuation & asset evidence | ||
| Business valuation, going concern | What the business is worth on its own evidence, whatever the seller is asking. | 10–15 business days |
| SBA change-of-ownership valuation | Whether a 7(a) change of ownership clears the SBA independent-valuation requirement, with value split across land, building, equipment and intangibles. | 10–15 business days |
| Commercial real estate appraisal | What the property alone is worth. We take on special-purpose and going-concern buildings that most appraisers turn down. | 15–20 business days |
| Machinery & equipment appraisal | What the equipment is worth where it sits, and what it would bring at auction if the plan went wrong. | 10–15 business days |
| Going-concern allocation opinion | How the total divides between real estate, the business itself and the tangible personal property. Most price arguments are really arguments about this. | 5–10 business days |
| Purchase price allocation support | Component values your accountants can use to book the acquisition. | 10 business days |
| Commercial & market diligence | ||
| Target market & demand study | Whether the demand behind the seller's revenue is real, and whether it is growing or quietly draining away. | 10–15 business days |
| Competitive supply & pipeline scan | What is being built, permitted or announced that will be competing with you a year after closing. | 5–8 business days |
| Customer, contract & concentration review | How much of the profit rides on how few relationships, on what terms, and whether those contracts even survive a change of ownership. | 5–8 business days |
| Capacity & utilization study | Can the plant make what the projections say it will make, and what has to be bought first. | 8–12 business days |
| Key-person & workforce review | What leaves with the seller, and what it costs to replace. | 5 business days |
| Financial analysis & capital structure | ||
| Earnings normalization review (non-attest) | Which adjustments to earnings are supportable and which are wishful, and what run-rate a lender will actually credit. | 8–12 business days |
| Working-capital peg analysis | How much working capital the business genuinely needs, so the peg isn't negotiated blind. | 5–8 business days |
| Post-acquisition pro forma model | A ten-year model with no hardcoded numbers, delivered live in your portal instead of as a dead PDF. | 10–15 business days |
| Debt capacity, DSCR & covenant test | What the business can service, and how much room the proposed covenants really leave. | 5–8 business days |
| Capital-structure review | How senior debt, mezzanine, seller notes, earn-outs and equity should stack, and what each layer costs you in a downside. | 5–10 business days |
| Sensitivity, rate stress & Monte Carlo | Where it breaks. At what occupancy, what price, what cost, what rate. | 5 business days |
| Program & lender compliance | ||
| SBA 7(a) / 504 change-of-ownership package | Everything the credit file needs for an SBA-financed acquisition, built to the SOP in effect when we are engaged. | 15–20 business days |
| USDA B&I acquisition package | The feasibility and valuation evidence a USDA guaranteed acquisition has to carry under 7 CFR Part 5001. | 15–20 business days |
| Credit-file feasibility narrative | The independent write-up a lender needs to defend the credit internally, and later to the agency. | 5–10 business days |
| Reliance letters, updates, re-certifications | Extending a report we already wrote to a new lender, a new participant or a later closing date. | 2–5 business days |
| After the close | ||
| 100-day plan validation | Whether the integration assumptions inside the price can be done on the schedule someone promised. | 10 business days |
| Quarterly performance monitoring | How the business is tracking against the model it was underwritten on. Live, in your portal. | Recurring |
| Dispute & expert-witness support | Earn-out fights, allocation challenges, and testimony on value if the deal ends up in front of someone. | Per matter |
Six ways we usually get hired. Each is a fixed fee, put in writing after we talk. Start small and decide later that you need more, and what you already paid comes off the bigger number.
We are not the right firm for every transaction, and saying where the line falls saves everybody a call.
| Type of company | Scale we serve best | Why we fit |
|---|---|---|
| Owner-operated businesses with hard assets Manufacturing, distribution, service platforms, trades | $2M–$25M enterprise value SBA 7(a) acquisitions to $5M | Most of the value is in equipment, a customer list and an owner who is about to leave. We can appraise the first, test the second and put a number on the third. |
| Real-estate-heavy operating businesses Hotels and resorts, marinas, RV and boat storage, car washes, fuel and c-store, event venues and wineries | $5M–$75M enterprise value | Real estate, business and FF&E trade together here, and somebody has to say how much belongs to each. It is the work we do most. |
| Manufacturing, processing & industrial Food and beverage, ag processing, cold storage, building products, specialty chemicals | $10M–$150M enterprise value | These turn on the equipment and what it can actually produce. We appraise the machinery ourselves instead of sending it out. |
| Healthcare & senior living operators Senior housing, behavioral health, ASCs, dialysis, rural clinics | $5M–$100M enterprise value | Census, payer mix, licensure, where the referrals come from. Those are market questions long before they show up in the P&L. |
| Agricultural & rural enterprises Processing, aquaculture, greenhouse, grain and feed, agritourism | $3M–$50M, USDA-financed | We are in USDA B&I and OneRD files constantly, so the paperwork holds no surprises for us. |
| Family succession & internal transfers | Any scale in the ranges above | When buyer and seller already know each other, an outside number is what makes the deal defensible later, to a lender or to the rest of the family. |
| Platform buyers and roll-ups in our sectors | $25M–$150M aggregate program | Running the same framework on every target makes them comparable, and turns a synergy claim into something you can check. |
| Lenders, CDCs and credit funds | Any change-of-ownership credit | We already write for the credit file. On an acquisition the client is often the lender rather than the buyer. |
Most buyers choose from five kinds of help. What separates them is who the work is really for, how the bill gets calculated, and whether a lender will accept the result.
| Wert-Berater | Investment bank or business broker | National accounting firm transaction services | Boutique valuation shop | In-house team | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who the work is for | The file. It has to hold up in front of somebody who didn't hire us. | The transaction. A success-fee mandate is, by construction, pointed at getting it closed. | The client's finance function, inside an attest-independence framework. | The client, usually within one discipline. | Whoever is championing the deal, with all the pressure that carries. |
| How they are paid | Fixed fee, quoted before we start. Never a percentage of the deal. | Typically a success fee, so the fee exists only if the deal closes. | Hourly or phased fees, usually the highest tier of the five. | Fixed or hourly fee. | Salary, plus the cost of a team not running the business while they do this. |
| Real estate, business and equipment under one roof | Yes. MAI, ASA Going Concern and equipment appraisal in house, ending in one allocation. | Rarely. Valuation is usually outsourced or indicative. | Business valuation yes; property and equipment usually subcontracted. | Usually one discipline, with the rest referred out. | Almost never all three. |
| Acceptance in SBA and USDA credit files | Routine. 1,283 SBA and 823 USDA studies in agency financing so far. | Generally out of scope; lenders normally commission valuation and feasibility work separately. | Accepted, though rarely scoped to program requirements. | Varies with the credential and with appraiser independence. | Not independent, so generally not acceptable. |
| Independent market fieldwork | Always. We count the demand ourselves and benchmark it against RMA and IBISWorld. | Frequently built on the seller's own materials rather than independent research. | Often a data purchase rather than primary research. | Sometimes; often out of scope. | Limited by time and by access. |
| What you end up with | A live model in your portal. Change an assumption and everything downstream moves. | A CIM, a data room and a closing binder. | A report, usually a locked PDF. | A report, usually a locked PDF. | An internal spreadsheet, with the continuity risk that carries. |
| After the closing | Quarterly monitoring against the underwritten model, with covenant flags. | The relationship usually ends at close. | A new engagement, separately scoped. | Generally none. | Whatever capacity survives the integration. |
| If the deal is later disputed | The same credentialed expert can support testimony on value and allocation. | Not a testimony role. | Available, at dispute-practice rates. | Sometimes. | No independent standing. |
| Typical turnaround | Five days for a screen. Three to five weeks for full diligence. | Months, driven by the sale process. | Four to eight weeks, subject to partner availability. | Two to four weeks for one report. | As long as the day job allows. |
These comparisons describe what we typically see from each category of provider in transaction files since 1998. Individual firms vary, and any particular provider should be judged on its own engagement terms.
MSc Economics from the London School of Economics and LLB Law from the University of London. Started at Lehman Brothers in 1982 and went on to underwrite and manage a $700 million real estate equity portfolio, then held senior asset-management roles across hospitality, industrial, energy and infrastructure assets in Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and the Caribbean. He directs every engagement and signs off on it.
MAI with the Appraisal Institute, where he has been a member since 2006, in real estate since 1987, and an Accredited Senior Appraiser with the ASA Going Concern specialty. Certified General Real Estate Appraiser in several states, with business and equipment appraisal work behind him as well. He carries the value conclusions and decides how they get allocated. A staff member of Wert-Berater, Inc., he is also the owner of Special Purpose Realty Valuation.
Builds and audits the transaction models. Ten-year pro forma with nothing hardcoded, coverage ratios, sensitivities at 5, 10 and 15 percent either way, rate stress, Monte Carlo, DCF and Z-Score, all of it run through the firm's 22-point model audit before anyone sees it.
Handles the trade area, the demand and absorption work and the competitive supply picture, benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld. Every demand conclusion carries its source, because reviewers ask.
MBA with a BS in Finance, with the firm since 2013. Works on earnings normalization, working capital and the risk register that goes out with every diligence report.
Demographics, trade-area research and competitive fieldwork. This is the legwork that replaces borrower-supplied projections in anything we sign.
The fee is fixed and you see it in writing before anything starts. It doesn't scale with the size of the deal, it doesn't rise if the answer turns out to be the one you were hoping for, and none of it is contingent on a closing. What does move the number: how many asset classes need appraising, how many locations we have to visit, the state of the seller's records, and whether the deal is being financed under a program with its own documentation rules. If you start with a Deal Screen and come back within sixty days, that fee comes off in full.
A feasibility study for an acquisition target is not a restatement of the seller's pitch deck. It is an independent reconstruction of what the business actually earns, what the real estate and equipment are actually worth, and whether the combined debt service the buyer is about to take on is actually supportable. Wert-Berater has completed more than 4,000 such engagements since 1998, covering more than $41.2 billion in evaluated project value, and every engagement is built from the same discipline: no hardcoded values, no conclusions revised under pressure, no fee contingent on the finding.
Demand analysis for an acquisition differs from greenfield demand analysis in one critical way: the business already has a revenue history, and the question is whether that history is repeatable and growable under new ownership, or whether it is tied to a seller relationship, a legacy contract or a market condition that is already eroding. The analysis is built in two directions simultaneously.
The first direction is backward: trade area definition using drive-time or service-radius mapping, population and demographic data from Census Bureau and American Community Survey releases, and employer or anchor-tenant data from state labor department filings. Competitive supply is counted from state and local business licensing registries, Secretary of State entity records, and, where applicable, professional licensing databases — not estimated, counted. For businesses whose revenue depends on physical traffic, municipal traffic-count data and pedestrian-flow studies are incorporated. For businesses with regulated capacity limits, the applicable licensing authority's public records establish the ceiling.
The second direction is forward: industry trend data from IBISWorld and trade association publications is used to assess whether the category the target operates in is expanding, contracting or consolidating, and what share-shift risk exists from format or technology substitution. No market-size figures are invented; every number cited in the narrative carries an identified source that a reviewer can verify independently.
Coverage ratios are sensitive to a small number of inputs, and those inputs are the ones most susceptible to seller optimism. The study identifies them explicitly, tests each one, and states the level at which coverage breaks.
Each lending channel applies its own standard, and the study is built to whichever standard governs the transaction.
Under SBA SOP 50 10 8, the minimum coverage thresholds are 1.15 times operating cash flow and 1.00 times global cash flow. For acquisition transactions, SBA requires that the analysis address whether the business can service the proposed debt under new ownership — not merely whether it serviced debt under the seller. The global analysis must include all obligations of the borrowing entity and any guarantors. Wert-Berater prepares every SBA engagement to those minimums with no adjustment for lender preference.
USDA Business & Industry guarantees under RD Staff Instruction 5001 require a feasibility study for transactions above the agency's size threshold. The analysis must address market feasibility, financial feasibility and management feasibility as separate findings. Each is addressed in a discrete section of the narrative.
Conventional lenders typically require 1.20 times coverage and place heavier weight on collateral adequacy and liquidation value. For acquisition transactions, the lender's primary concern is whether the going-concern value that justifies the purchase price is durable. The study addresses that directly by stress-testing the revenue assumptions that support goodwill, and by providing orderly liquidation values on all tangible assets so the lender can evaluate the collateral gap independently.
The engagement begins with a fee quote, delivered within one business day of a project inquiry. The fee is fixed; it does not change if the analysis takes longer than expected, and it is not contingent on the conclusion. There is no success fee, no closing bonus and no arrangement under which a favorable finding produces a higher payment. That structure is not a marketing position — it is the condition under which an independent determination is possible.
The data room requirement is specific to the acquisition: three to five years of business tax returns and financial statements, the purchase and sale agreement or letter of intent, any existing appraisals or equipment schedules, the current lease or real estate title information, and the seller's customer or revenue concentration data. A complete data room checklist is provided at engagement. Standard delivery is 10 to 15 business days from a complete data room; rush delivery is available and quoted at the outset.
Every engagement is published to a secure client portal. The financial model — a fully linked Excel workbook with no hardcoded values — remains live in the portal and recalculates when any input is changed. A credit officer who wants to run a scenario the study did not explicitly address can do so without requesting a revision. The bound narrative report, the ten-year pro forma, the sensitivity tables and the statement of conditions are all delivered through the same portal at the same time.
Twenty minutes, no obligation. Tell us what you're buying, when you need it, and who has to be able to rely on the work. What you'll get back is a fixed-fee scope letter, not an hourly estimate.
Open the transaction model, change an assumption, and see what it does to coverage. Any time of day.
Sign in to your portal → Schedule a Zoom callLegal disclosure. Wert-Berater, Inc. offices are mailing addresses only. Following the COVID-19 pandemic the firm has elected to work remotely; its office locations receive mail and are not staffed for visitors or in-person meetings. Headquarters mailing address: 1968 South Coast Hwy, Ste 2382, Laguna Beach, CA 92651.
Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent provider of feasibility studies and other related services. The firm does not provide financing or equity investment advice, and does not arrange, broker, or place debt or equity capital of any kind.
All appraisal assignments are performed by Bruce E. Jones, MAI, ASA-GC, BCA, CMEA, a member of the Appraisal Institute since 2006, a staff member of Wert-Berater, Inc. and owner of Special Purpose Realty Valuation.