How do folks think about the value of inventory when making offers?

June 09, 2025
by a searcher from Boston University - Questrom School of Business in Newton, NH, USA
I'm relatively new to the ETA space, and am in the earlyish innings of my search, focused mainly on service industry targets. However, I came across a listing that looks interesting; current owner has similar background as me, runs the target similar to how I would, etc. But it's not a service company, and has significant inventory, which ebbs and flows over the course of the year. These numbers aren't the real ones, but are roughly proportional, to give you an idea of what I mean:
SDE: 100K
Asking Price: 267K
Inventory: 533 (not included).
Assuming that the valuation of inventory is accurate, I am basically buying the inventory, which you pretty much have to in order to run the business.
So my question is, how do folks view / evaluate offers on inventory-heavy companies? It feels odd to pay for something that was *already* a business expense for the company under previous ownership. If you buy the inventory in the above example, that pushes the multiple to an eye-watering 8 handle. I assume there is some other way to look at this, since any company that has a high amount of inventory would be untouchable from a traditional price / SDE multiple.
Thanks!
from University of Central Florida in Chicago, IL, USA
from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, USA