Just one point
Depending on how many vehicles, and their current value, unless revenue goes up, the value of your business is dropping basically every day as the vehicles depreciate. If you need to sell in 5 years, and haven't replaced the vehicles, you won't be able to sell for as much as you paid. Even with perfect maintenance, a 10 year old vehicle with double the miles is worth a lot less than a 5 year old vehicle.
And some of the cash flow reports I used to see don't take into account any reserve to cancel out that depreciation. Unless you are able to put aside cash reserves to counter the depreciation before counting cash flow, or net income, those numbers mean nothing. I imagine that some sellers who have business experience, or a good accountant actually do take these factors into account. Just watch it. Do you honestly believe that you are going to net $350,000 per year on a million dollar ISP investment???? And if you finance the debt, how much will you have after payments? A 35% return is a lie. Maybe 35% of the cash you invest if you finance most of it. If you put $100,000 down, you might be buying a $35,000 a year income, less if you hire a manager.
Yes, depreciation saves you on taxes, but it negatively affects the value of your business. In fact, the tax savings don't make up for most of the depreciation.
My advice is to calculate all your own figures for expenses, including replacement reserves, and value the business separately from any 'assets' included in the purchase. That's the only way to get the real picture of ROI.
I had a few routes years ago, and have over 30 years in 'investment' real estate, and I found real estate to be more lucrative and easier to deal with from a management perspective. I only had to rely on my own skills, and not trust that others would keep my assets covered. I both flipped and rehabbed for long term and short term, and didn't have to rely on any contract with someone else to make money. I'm sure there are other business investments with less risk, and less work for the same or better return than you will get from Fedex, especially if you are going to have debt servicing costs to aquire the so-called business. If fedex was such a great deal, Trump would be buying routes instead of real estate.
In real estate, if you put 10% down, and rent pays the mortgage, you double your money when the value goes up less than 10%. IF you buy smart, at a minimum you have someone else buying real estate for you when they pay your mortgage. You are going to have to manage about 1.3 drivers for each route you own, including peak planning, meaning permanent employees. You won't be able to afford to keep great employees since great employees will be able to find better jobs whenever they want, not even to mention other ISPs poaching your drivers. No similar issue in real estate since you are not dependent on employees, and can take a day off almost whenever you want.
At least with real estate, the underlying value of the asset generally increases. Unless net income increases over time, the value of the 'business' isn't going to increase despite other inflation. Remember that there is no real asset, and you aren't buying a real business, in my opinion. What you are buying is the right to service a contract, and fedex reserves the right to cancel that contract unilaterally, with your right to challenge cancellation limited.
