By Cheryl Powers

In a notable transaction last year, Darden Restaurants, the entity behind Olive Garden, disclosed its acquisition of Ruth's Chris Steak House for $715 million. This figure pegged the valuation at approximately one times the preceding year's annual revenue, translating to around ten times the adjusted EBITDA for 2022. While impressive for a corporation of its stature, the valuation metrics for Ruth's Chris may have been somewhat constrained by its absence of a recurring...

By Cheryl Powers

In business, bigger often seems better. We applaud companies bursting with staff and swelling their revenues year over year. But if you're steering your business toward the day you can sell it for a healthy profit, you'll need more than just piling on sales. You could be growing, sure, but not in ways that actually up your company's worth. Sometimes, this kind of growth could even hurt your value.

The Real Deal About Growth and Value

Let's get straight to the point:...

Facts, while indisputable, merely describe the state of something. They point to things which are real, which exist but which don't necessarily explain why or how they got that way. And which, if viewed from another vantage point, may even seem to prove something else entirely.

Sherlock Holmes knows this well. Holmes out-sleuthed the police detectives time after time. He was especially fond of showing Detective Lestrade, who always seemed confused by the facts of a case, the errors...