Good Riddance! And Happy New Year!

Like you in 2020, we couldn’t travel and only rarely ate out, mostly al fresco in the summer. We didn’t have dinner with friends unless socially distanced, or enjoy live music by going to concerts or following favorite bands in funky bars. My 70^th birthday was not celebrated with the kick-ass party we’d planned at our favorite microbrewery, and my high school girlfriends’ visit to Seattle, my nephew’s wedding, and my brother-in-law’s memorial service were postponed and moved to 2021. As a result, there were a lot of empty hours. A lot. Here’s what I should have done with that time:

Learned a new language.
Exercised daily, working specifically on my shin splints and IT Band Syndrome.
Learned how to cook.
Read deeper, more meaningful books.

Here’s what I did:

Watched reruns of Forensic Files.
Became proficient with using online food ordering apps.
Reached Toy Blast Level 4540.
Claimed the dining room table, completing several jigsaw puzzles on it, including a 1500-piece monster that I’m going to toss on the 4^th of July bonfire at the beach this summer.

As I mentioned earlier, I took a lot of classes online as well, but felt as if I attended them in a sleepwalking fog. Very much like college, come to think of it.

So it’s pretty amazing to get to the end of this disappointing, discordant year and realize that from the standpoint of The Quincy Group, we did very well. Several businesses sold early in the 1st quarter before lockdown, but we also sold a couple sizeable ones in the 4th quarter, businesses whose profitability had barely been affected by the pandemic. They were home service/construction-related: HVAC services and a commercial insulation firm. On the other hand, we have an international travel company and three restaurants that haven’t had a hit in months, no surprise there. We also have three companies under Letters of Intent that will hopefully close in the next few months. It may appear foolhardy to invest in buying a business right now, but people who already own one are looking for ways to grow, and expansion via acquisition of another business is a tried and true way to do it. Sellers are flexible when it comes to terms, and the banks, now that they’re not trying to figure out how to manage SBA Payment Protection and Main Street Lending Programs, are eager to support new buyers.