During the past few years, predicting economic activity and growth has become more of an art than a science. Many, if not all, economic paradigms have been thrown out the window during the recovery from the Great Recession.

There was an amazing piece of information in USA Today recently. An article focused on the pending wealth transfer in this country and how countless recipients of this generational transfer are unprepared to manage the new funds that they will be inheriting. The two points of the article were that during the next several decades, millions of offspring in this country will be inheriting significant sums of money, and many are completely ill equipped to manage it.

As we all know, business owners today are facing unprecedented challenges. Your ability to grow, maintain profits, expand, hire people, and meet the needs of your customers are being tested today as never before. What is even of greater concern to business owners is the extraordinary intensity of “unknowns” that they face.

Quite a few business owners at our M&A workshops are under the mistaken belief that they are too small to be attractive targets for professional buyers. They tend to form this misconception because the business media typically focuses on large, billion-dollar deals.

According to a number of sources, outbound M&A activity (where a company headquartered offshore acquires a company in another country) was quite strong in 2011 and is expected to continue to be so in 2012.

Over the years, there has been an ongoing theoretical debate among economists and pundits about the efficacy of mergers and acquisitions. Opponents like to produce evidence that indicate that most mergers fail to live up to expectations. Proponents point out that although some deals do fail, the vast majority help the overall economy grow by providing capital for business expansion.

I recently came across an article that highlighted how vital having an M&A advisor working with you can be. As you contemplate the various methods of finding buyers or investors for your company, keep one simple fact in mind: You will most likely only sell one company in your entire lifetime, which is your own. However, professional buyers will analyze hundreds, if not thousands, of opportunities before making the decision to invest or acquire. So who do you think has the advantage in this scenario?

If you are the owner of a privately held company, the next 12-24 months could be the best timeframe in years for you to find a buyer for your company due to a variety of reasons that we have covered in previous articles. However, in this article we are going to focus on the huge stockpiles of cash that corporate players have been accumulating over the past several years.

Exit planning is probably one of the last items most business owners consider when thinking strategically about their businesses. However, it probably is the most important issue you can examine, even from the first days you open your doors.

According to a number of sources, even though M&A volume for the first quarter of this year has been slower than expected, the latter half of the year should more than make up for it. We are hearing this from professional buyers we deal with on a daily basis. They are telling us that they have aggressive acquisition plans in place under the assumption that they need to position themselves to take advantage of the expected continued economic recovery and obtain as much market share, new clients, and key talent now.