Raising Capital for asset heavy deal

May 24, 2025
by a searcher from Millersville University of Pennsylvania in Mantua Township, NJ, USA
Hey Searchfunder, I own an accounting firm and am predominately focused on buying more of those. So obviously very asset light business and easy to model out purchase price and investor returns.
However I have an opportunity to partner with someone on buying a business where they will be the day-to-day operator. He's not experienced with modeling or raising capital or getting financing or any of that stuff which is where I'll come in.
My question is, how do you go about raising capital and structuring the equity and return profile on a deal like this?
SDE = ~$565k
Inventory = $367k
Assets = $3.3M (probably worth quite a bit less than that with depreciated value)
I think the right purchase price for the business is around $2M, which generates a solid IRR profile that from my experience investors would accept.
However when I factor in needing to purchase the inventory and the assets as well. It changes my purchase price from $2M to more like $4.1M (again I'm assuming the assets are worth less than what they're showing on their balance sheet since they are fully depreciated).
At $4.1M the equity raise is much larger and the IRR drops of significantly.
Is there something I'm missing or is this why searcher's don't typically do deals like this?
When you add in all the assets and such it makes it over a 7x multiple which obviously just kills the deal.
Thoughts and assistance are appreciated!
from Carnegie Mellon University in Jersey City, NJ, USA
from Baruch College in Red Bank, NJ, USA