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1. How the proceeds are taxed
Business Asset Disposal Relief, which most owners still call Entrepreneurs' Relief, sets a reduced rate of capital gains tax on qualifying gains up to a lifetime limit. Both the rate and the limit have been changed more than once, and the relief has been under review repeatedly. The difference between two treatments of the same sale can be six figures.
What that means practically is not "sell before the deadline". It is that qualification usually depends on conditions you must have met for a period before the sale, so the planning has to happen a long way ahead of the transaction. Get the current rate, the current limit and the current qualifying conditions from your accountant, in writing, before you time anything around them.
2. Where the economic cycle is
Buyers get cautious in a downturn, and caution shows up as lower multiples, more of the price deferred, and longer diligence. The reverse is true in a confident market. This is the one factor an owner can genuinely read for themselves: if competitors in your sector are being bought and the trade press is full of it, buyers are active.
3. How much capital is looking for a home
Private equity and acquisition groups raise funds they are then obliged to deploy. When there is a lot of undeployed capital chasing a limited number of quality businesses, competitive tension does the work for you and prices firm up. Capital availability and the economic cycle are related but they are not the same thing, and they do not always move together.
4. What debt costs
Most acquisitions are part-funded with debt. Cheaper debt means a buyer can pay more for the same return, and more buyers can clear the bar at all. When rates rise, that arithmetic reverses: the same business earns a lower offer, or the same offer arrives with more of it deferred and contingent. Check what the cost of borrowing is doing before you read an offer as an insult.
The condition nobody lists
The fifth factor is whether the business is actually saleable, and it is the only one you control. A business that depends on the owner being there, has one customer worth 40% of revenue, or has three years of accounts that need explaining, will get a poor price in any market. Fixing those takes twelve to twenty-four months, which is why the work starts long before you want to go.
If you want a view on where yours sits, I will give you a number and the reasoning behind it. I buy companies in HVAC, Renewable Energy and Construction directly, so it is a buyer's view rather than a neutral one, and there is no commission and no obligation attached to it.