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MarginGraph

Example

What your business is worth, and why

A Dutch installation company. Twelve staff, one owner who still sells, one financial year of clean accounts. The business is invented; everything below it is not. The same analyzer, the same market data and the same reasoning engine that read your file produced this page.

What was in the file

Revenue
€1,200,000
EBITDA as reported
€240,000
Owner's own remuneration
€60,000
One-off costs identified
€25,000
Net assets
€310,000
Cash
€80,000
Interest-bearing debt
€150,000

Financial year 2025. Nothing else was supplied, and nothing else was assumed without saying so below.

The range, and how much of it to believe

Both earnings-based methods land between €694,948 and €987,500. That overlap is the defensible range.

Well grounded

€694,948 to €987,500

Traceable to a source
100%
Quality of that source
84%
Free of assumption
77%
Consistent with the rest
100%
  • Grounded in measured evidence with few assumptions.

What the business actually earns

The business earns €235,000 a year for an owner who does not work in it.

Well grounded

€235,000

Traceable to a source
100%
Quality of that source
87%
Free of assumption
88%
Consistent with the rest
100%
  • Grounded in measured evidence with few assumptions.

The three methods, side by side

What the business owns, less what it owes, comes to €310,000. Treat this as a floor rather than a valuation.

Well grounded

€310,000

Traceable to a source
100%
Quality of that source
100%
Free of assumption
71%
Consistent with the rest
100%
  • Grounded in measured evidence with few assumptions.

Against comparable Dutch transactions, the shares are worth €517,500 to €987,500.

Well grounded

€517,500 to €987,500

Traceable to a source
100%
Quality of that source
86%
Free of assumption
81%
Consistent with the rest
100%
  • Grounded in measured evidence with few assumptions.

Capitalising post-tax operating profit, the shares are worth €694,948 to €1,231,754.

Well grounded

€694,948 to €1,231,754

Traceable to a source
100%
Quality of that source
84%
Free of assumption
79%
Consistent with the rest
100%
  • Grounded in measured evidence with few assumptions.

Flags your own figures raise

Nothing in these figures contradicts anything else in them. That is not the same as the answer being right.

What would change this answer

Ordered by how much of the report rests on each one. Argue with the top of this list first.

  • A hired manager doing the owner's job would cost €90,000 a year. This is the single most contested figure in most negotiations.

    The answer weakens if this is wrong. It carries 80% of the report.

  • Maintenance capital expenditure is roughly equal to depreciation, so post-tax operating profit stands in for distributable cash. This understates a business that has just finished investing.

    The answer weakens if this is wrong. It carries 40% of the report.

  • The multiple is treated as 3.5 plus or minus 1. No publisher of SME multiples reports a confidence interval, so this width is our choice and not a measurement.

    The answer weakens if this is wrong. It carries 40% of the report.

  • The surveyed transactions are comparable to this business. They are Dutch and in the same earnings band; sector, growth and customer mix are not controlled for in the published data.

    The answer weakens if this is wrong. It carries 40% of the report.

  • A company-specific risk premium of 0.0% to 8.0%. NACVA's own guidance states there is no easily identifiable data source for this figure and that it is a matter of professional judgment. It is shown as a range for that reason.

    The answer weakens if this is wrong. It carries 40% of the report.

  • A size premium of 4.0%. Published size premia are derived from portfolios of listed companies and do not transfer cleanly to an owner-managed business.

    The answer weakens if this is wrong. It carries 40% of the report.

  • The business continues trading as it does today, with the current owner replaced rather than removed.

    The answer reverses if this is wrong. It carries 20% of the report.

Where every figure came from

FigureSourceQuality
Revenue for 2025.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · P&L · B4100%
Reported EBITDA for 2025.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · P&L · B18100%
Depreciation and amortisation for 2025.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · P&L · B19100%
Salary and benefits taken by the current owner in 2025.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · P&L · B12100%
Net assets on the balance sheet.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · Balance · B30100%
Cash held at the balance sheet date.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · Balance · B8100%
Interest-bearing debt at the balance sheet date.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · Balance · B24100%
Costs identified as not recurring under a new owner.jaarrekening-2025.xlsx · P&L · B22100%
Adjusted EBITDA of €235,000: reported €240,000, plus owner remuneration of €60,000, less a market-rate salary of €90,000, plus one-off costs of €25,000.Calculated from the figures above61%
Dutch businesses at under €500k of adjusted EBITDA transacted at an average of 3.5× EBITDA, per the Brookz Overname Barometer H1-2025, a survey of Dutch M&A advisors.nl-ebitda-multiple · 2026-q384%
Discount rate of 11.4% to 19.4%: risk-free 2.8%, equity risk premium 4.6%, size premium 4.0%, company-specific 0.0% to 8.0%.Calculated from the figures above61%

How this report was produced

Recorded so the same figures can be reproduced years from now, with the data that was current on the day it was written rather than today's.

Report
example-business-valuation
Generated
2026-07-28T09:00:00.000Z
Method
valuation 1.0.0
Template
business-valuation 1.0.0
Market data
valuation-knowledge · 2026-q3

The same thing, on your figures

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