The clock is ticking! We are in the final stretch of 2025 and valuations still have the same challenges as it was at the beginning of the year: market volatility – interest rates – inflation – and those three themes have one thing in common for valuations in these areas of M&A, ESOPs and Gift & Estate – Uncertainty!!

In this episode, we are going to talk about what happens when a company makes the exciting decision to become an employee-owned company with Christopher Czyryca. Mr. Czyryca is the President of Collaborative Testing Services; Inc. CTS is a company that runs interlaboratory programs; these are quality assurance tools for testing in measurements laboratories.

Even though it feels like we have been in this whirlpool cycle so far in 2025, there have been a lot of interesting things happening in the Merger and Acquisition space. As we know, the M&A outlook coming into this year saw that there were several advantages for M&A activity: substantial amount of capital raised, monetary supply side pressure for deal flow, lower interest rates and a more business friendly government. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the second quarter, we took a negative turn!

Having ESOPs as an alternative platform for a potential exit strategy has gained a lot of momentum for a variety of reasons. This podcast explores three areas of interest for considering the ESOP option: 1. Professional Services 2. M&A Growth Strategy and 3. Government support.

Our current economic and market conditions have shifted a great deal in the first quarter of 2025. This shift has brought on both uncertainty and the unknown for any opportunities for M&A for middle market businesses. This month, we will tackle three things to keep an eye on as we go through this next wave.

As the threat of tariffs hangs over businesses here in the United States, business values will continue to suffer. It can come from increased costs to reduced consumer spending to ongoing uncertainty around how the future will unfold, leaving business owners, or Board of Directors with the need to be prepared for potentially two things: lower transaction valuations and lower valuation multiples potentially moving forward.

The financial sector, once known for its inefficiencies and complexities, has undergone a revolutionary transformation with the rise of fintech startups. But valuing a FinTech startup company is not done with a traditional business valuation. This sector is a mixture of innovative technology and financial services, and most importantly, involved in a rapidly changing market. This all means that you cannot just rely on traditional methods to gain a clear picture of the company’s worth.

To kick off 2025, we are going to discuss Preparing your Business for an Exit, with a special guest, Sankeetha Selvarajah. Sankeetha is the chair of Mergers & Acquisitions Corporate at Romano Law, a corporate law firm in lower Manhattan New York.