I would ask myself why do I want to do this and why does he want to sell. Coverage and employees is the only key to our line of work. Over the past few years I have been ask if I would like to buy a company out and I have turned it down because of several factors. One of which is I would be buying his employees and his accounts who are based on a owner operator cost scale and below my base rate. Do you have the employees to handle the new coverage? If you say yes you are lucky. Without a employee pool I would downgrade the sale from the start. How would you make it work?
Look at his account list and get a feel for what he wants and work from that point. If he runs one truck his volume should be at or near 125M and I would look at it in terms of 25% or less-just for the account list along with a transition. I know this is low and not near the standard formula, but you are buying air. I would base his payment on the month volume.
David