as·si·du·i·ty


Cort Business Services
January 20, 2007, 10:42 pm
Filed under: Commercial Services & Supplies, Household Durables

In Feb-00 Berkshire Hathaway (‘Berkshire’) through its subsidiary acquired all of the outstanding of U.S. rental furniture provider Cort Business Services Corporation (‘Cort’) for US$28 per share or an aggregate of US$395m. Including US$83m in net debt the total consideration amounted to US$477m. This implied the following multiples: 114% of LTM  revenue (US$347m, 2.1x net tangible capital turn), 3.9x LTM EBITDA (US$102m, 29.4% margin), 7.0x LTM EBITA (US$56m, 16.1% margin), and 7.9x LTM pre-tax profit (US$50m – before goodwill amortization -, 14.4% margin). Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd (‘CVC’) owned approximately 44% of the outstanding shares.