Closed at 9.2x, well above the going rate.

This one closed high, and it was not close.

The business sold at 9.2x profit. The median for its sector was 6.8x. That gap, 9.2 against 6.8, is not a rounding error. It is the buyer choosing to pay well above the going rate, on purpose, for a business that had done specific things right.

Three facts drove the premium. Recurring revenue was 71% of the mix. Clients stayed 8.4 years on average. And a written succession plan had been in place for 24 months before the sale process ever started.

Read those three together and you can see what the buyer saw. Most of the revenue repeated under contract, so the buyer was pricing something close to an annuity, not a business that had to win its customers again every year. Clients stayed the better part of a decade, so the recurring revenue was not a promise; it had a track record. And there was a written plan for the business to run without the owner, so the buyer did not have to wonder whether the whole thing walked out the door with the founder.

A buyer pays up when the business can clearly change hands. That is what all three facts add up to. Any successor could run it, and the revenue would still be there next year, under contract, from clients who had already stayed for years.

None of this was arranged in the final negotiation. The recurring mix was built over years. The client tenure was earned. The succession plan was written and in place a full 24 months before the offer arrived. By the time a buyer was looking, the premium was already baked in. The owner was not asking to be paid more. The business was simply worth more, and the buyer could see it in the contracts.