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A report of first quarter business transactions by BizBuySell shows examples of restaurants selling for fractions of their asking price, including a Latin restaurant in Miami-Dade County selling for 17 percent of its asking price and a bagel restaurant in Broward selling for 69 percent. The names of the businesses were not identified.

Nationwide, restaurants sold for the lowest cash flow multiple, at 2.51 percent, compared with 2.80 percent for service business, 2.93 percent for retail and 3.11 percent for manufacturing. In a March 12 article, Tom Prakas, owner of the Prakas Group in Boca Raton, said calls from potential restaurant buyers and operators were down about 15 percent by late last year.

Overall, the South Florida's 97 first-quarter business transactions counted by BizBuySell were completed at 87 percent of the asking price, compared with 83 percent in the first quarter of 2007. The average business sold for $205,000, had $500,000 in revenue and $113,877 in cash flow. It sold for multiples of 2.13 times cash flow and 0.59 times revenue.

BizBuySell calls itself the Internet's largest business-for-sale marketplace.

Copyright © 2008. South Florida Business Journal.