Value creation for discerning business leaders
Mālama Financial prepares Hawaii companies for transactions — whether full or partial exits (business sale), capital raises, or other similar strategic outcomes. We spend the 2 to 5 years before your transaction to optimize your financials, operations and reporting. We help you create outsized value and, ultimately, achieve the transaction outcome you have always envisioned.
The problem
Most owners start preparing when a buyer calls. That is the worst possible time.
By the time an offer is on the table, everything a buyer can use against you is already baked into three years of history you can no longer change. Diligence does not discover value for a seller; it uncovers value for the buyer.
What a buyer will examine
Most buyers request three full years of financials. The books you keep today are the books you will be judged on.
The price cut after the handshake
Unclean books, undocumented add-backs and surprise working-capital swings are the standard grounds for lowering an agreed price.
You sell a business once
Your buyer has done this dozens of times, with a diligence team behind them. Preparation is how you level that table.
Sale preparation
4 things a buyer will test. We address all 4 before they look.
One team, covering everything between "I think I want to sell" and a signed purchase agreement.
Books that survive diligence
We can guide and/or support your accounting team to the standard a quality-of-earnings team expects, before they arrive to test it.
- Accrual conversion and clean cut-offs
- Documented, defensible owner add-backs
- Three years of clean, consistent history
A value story with evidence
We establish an estimate of what the business is actually worth today, then help you build the plan that moves that number.
- Normalized and adjusted EBITDA
- Independent valuation — A.B.V. credentialed
- Working capital target analysis
- Forecast a buyer will actually underwrite
A business that runs without you
Buyers discount owner dependence most severely. This is the most involved of the four workstreams and the one that creates the most value.
- Reducing owner and key-person reliance
- Customer concentration mitigation
- Management bench and succession
- Contracts, leases and licenses in order
Taken to sale properly
The materials and the process that turn an “exit ready” business into competing offers. We can work alongside your M&A counsel and tax advisor, through to close.
- Confidential information memorandum
- Data room built and managed
- Buyer screening and outreach
- Diligence defense through to closing
An important distinction
Our pre-sale value creation and exit readiness work is not that of a business broker.
Brokers are paid to close a transaction. That is a legitimate and useful role — and it begins at the point where our initial work ends.
Mālama Financial — Exit Readiness
Builds the business that sells
- Engaged 2 to 5 years in advance
- Rebuilds financials, operations and reporting
- We have sat on the buyer's side of the table — we know what they look for
A broker
Sells the business you have
- Engaged when you are ready to sell
- Lists, markets and finds a buyer
- Compensated on closing the deal
- Works with the numbers you hand them
How an engagement runs
The work is sequenced backwards from your closing date.
Each phase depends on the one before it. This is why starting early produces a materially different result than starting six months out.
Exit Readiness Assessment
A fixed-fee diagnostic. We evaluate the business as it stands, run the diligence a buyer would run, and report on what will cost you money at closing.
Value Building
The long work. Accounting rebuilt to diligence standard, owner dependence reduced, concentration addressed, management strengthened, and monthly reporting a buyer can trust.
Sale Preparation
Sell-side quality of earnings, normalized EBITDA locked down, data room assembled, confidential information memorandum written, and the right advisors — M&A counsel, tax — brought around the table.
Process & Closing
After we have helped you build the business for sale, we can help you execute the sale. Buyer outreach and screening, management presentations, offer evaluation, and diligence defense. When their team asks questions, we are the ones who answer.
“Landon is a tremendous resource. His intelligence, finance expertise, and operations experience make him a very unique business advisor. He was able to quickly give us strategic direction at a reasonable cost and high value. I was so impressed with his work that I asked him to be on our company advisory board.”
President & Founder
Honolulu
Also from Mālama
Not interested in selling?
The same team, engaged in the ways owners need whether or not an exit/transaction is on the horizon.
Fractional CFO
Senior financial leadership without a full-time hire. Forecasting and preparation, board and lender reporting, capital allocation, capital structure and the decisions in between.
Outsourced Accounting
Outsourced accounting for Hawaii small businesses, run by C.P.A.s. Monthly closes, clean books, and financials you can actually use.
Outsourced Accounting →Compliance & Risk
Sarbanes-Oxley readiness, internal controls, regulatory compliance and finance transformation.
Compliance & Risk →Start here
Find out what your business is worth — and what is holding it back.
A confidential, no-obligation conversation about your business, your timeline, and what preparation would actually involve.