Does Iowa add its own layoff-notice clock?
Yes, in the layoff-notice lists we checked. Counsel confirms the headcount. Do not copy California’s 75 or New York’s 50 full-time / 90-day numbers onto a Waterloo file. Those thresholds are not in the Iowa research we are allowed to use.
Federal WARN can still apply at 100 full-time employees and 60 days (29 U.S.C. § 2101). WARN is the federal page. A 65.6-person average shop sits closer to that federal test than a 25-person Florida shop. About 2.28% of Iowa plants have 500 or more employees; those files may already be over it. Employees still hear on a planned day, usually late, with a script.
Why is the typical Iowa plant mid-size?
The Census County Business Patterns, 2023 file put Iowa twenty-eighth, with 3,418 manufacturing shops and 224,293 jobs (Source: Census CBP). That is 65.6 people per location. 61.6% of the shops have fewer than twenty employees, below the national 68.4% on 284,452 U.S. plants.
That mix is more mid-size factory than a small-shop Western state. Ag machinery, food processing, fabricated metal, and chemicals are the clusters we can name. Confirm a NAICS count before it appears in a teaser. Sub-sector hubs keep those packets apart. A Waterloo machinery shop and a Sioux City food plant share the 3,418-shop map. They do not share a dealer.
Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Waterloo, and Sioux City are regions we name in a confidential teaser. A machinery dealer can leak a Waterloo file before any listing appears. Keep the teaser unnamed until the NDA is signed. A plains neighbor is sell a manufacturing business in Nebraska. A larger Midwestern map is sell a manufacturing business in Missouri. Do not copy either notice rule onto Iowa.
Owners who sell a manufacturing business here still have to write the replacement wage into the recast. Sixty-six people already implies a second chair and a shift.
What environmental disclosure still attaches?
Disclosure regimes exist; counsel confirms which one attaches. That is not Connecticut’s Transfer Act and not a New Jersey-style cleanup clock. Phase I still applies when land or a wet process is in the deal (Source: EPA / 40 C.F.R. Part 312). ASTM E1527-21 is the usual practice. Pieces generally go stale after 180 days. Ag-machinery coolants, food chemistry, metal coatings, and chemical tanks still go to Phase I and, if needed, Phase II.
Compilations we checked do not cite a dedicated business-broker license rule. Business-broker licensing by state is the comparison. The building still needs a licensed real-estate broker. Counsel confirms the engagement. Jason Taken is a business broker.
Sales tax on machinery is often a manufacturing-exemption or occasional-sale question. Successor tax is fact-dependent. An Iowa CPA writes those sentences. HedgeStone will not.
A 65.6-person average already sits closer to the federal WARN test than a 25-person shop. Iowa’s own layoff-notice rule is the first counsel question; the federal 100 / 60 test is the second. Disclosure regimes on property transfers are a third question. Ag-machinery seasonality is not a food code-date problem. Write those packets separately. Sioux City food and Cedar Rapids machinery share a flag and do not share a dealer book. Name the process before anyone tours Waterloo.
How do you sell a Cedar Rapids or Waterloo shop quietly?
How it works stays an unnamed teaser, an NDA, a staged room, then a scripted visit. Machinery files leak through a dealer. Food files leak through a slot. Chemical files leak through a formula buyer. Name a region — eastern Iowa machinery, western Iowa food, river-city metal — not a bay door. Skip a customer-audit week.
Public boards create inbound and screenshots. On 3,418 shops the default is still a controlled list. A 66-person average does not make a screenshot safer.
Manufacturing business valuation stays national. BizBuySell still shows a 2.75x manufacturing SDE median on about $268k discretionary earnings. The same review’s 223-day median is a planning number, not a Davenport promise. An ag-machinery plant with reportable EBITDA does not belong in that SDE room.
| Shop that walks in | How buyers usually price it | What still binds | What Des Moines does not add |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner still quotes every Waterloo job | SDE after a named replacement wage | 2.75x median in the BizBuySell manufacturing set | “Iowa plant” in the teaser |
| A real second chair already runs the line | Adjusted EBITDA in national bands | Size band and process, not the flag | 3,418 shops in the Census file |
| Tired iron plus a cleaned peg beats earnings | Orderly liquidation | Floor test | A Sioux City food line with no chemistry packet |
IBBA Q1 2026 said 83% of deals over $5 million drew three or more offers. Iowa’s 2.28% large-plant tail can see that earlier than a tiny-shop West. It is not a bid on a $310k-SDE Cedar Rapids shop. Buyer types recast operators to SDE, machinery buyers to the dealer, and food buyers to the slot. Sponsor names stay off this file.
Cedar Rapids searchers still get the national SBA 7(a) box: $5 million, 10% injection, SOP 50 10 8. Seller paper is equity only on full standby for the life of the loan, and only up to half the injection. A Davenport metal shop that cannot live there should say so before Waterloo tours.
What price room and packet does Iowa use?
Unfinished machinery jobs and food holds need separate classes in the working-capital peg before exclusivity. Copy a retailer peg into a Cedar Rapids letter and the true-up will invent a fight after the wire.
The complete guide to selling a manufacturing business is the national sequence. This page only adds Iowa notice, disclosure, and shop-size facts.
| Packet | Ready looks like | Iowa note |
|---|---|---|
| Recast | Three years, year-to-date, add-backs documented | Replacement wage for the 65.6-person chair |
| Notice | Temps counted; counsel reads Iowa’s rule | Federal 100 / 60 plus the state rule counsel confirms |
| Disclosure | Counsel names which regime attaches | Not a New Jersey cleanup clock |
| Concentration | Trailing twelve and thirty-six months | Dealer and slot names wait for the NDA |
| Quality | ISO or food certificates current | Access gate, not a logo |
| Equipment | Serial numbers and liens | Floor test versus a hoped-for multiple |
| License | Counsel reads the engagement | No dedicated broker-license rule widely cited; the building still needs a card |
National wage prints from BLS OEWS May 2025 — machinist $58,750, welder $53,750 — stay national. They are not a Des Moines wage series. If the file cannot name who quotes Sioux City work when the owner is gone, it is not ready for a tour.
Ag machinery hides dealer backlog. Food hides code dates. Fabricated metal hides coatings. Chemicals hide formula custody. Write those packets separately. The 224,293-employee count does not merge them.
Related-party rent in Des Moines that sits below market is a gift to the first offer. Put a market rent in the recast. The notice question belongs on the process calendar. It is not a reason to skip a real-estate broker when a Waterloo building transfers.
August 2026 ISM at 54.6 and July 2026 Fed utilization at 76.0% describe the year. They do not become a Cedar Rapids machinery premium. Most of the 3,418 shops still have fewer than twenty people, even on a 65.6-person average. Davenport belongs in the second sentence of a teaser, never in the first. On a 66-person floor, a bay address is a leak.
Form 8594 and IRC § 1060 still split equipment, goodwill, and the building. An Iowa CPA writes the machinery-tax sentences. Jason Taken is a business broker, not that CPA. Counsel still confirms the notice rule and which disclosure regime attaches. No Des Moines close date is promised.
A Waterloo machinery book that still depends on one owner to quote every dealer is not “a 66-person plant” in the offering memo. Name the second chair first. If the only buyer who will tour wants “any Iowa shop,” send them away. Twenty-eighth place in the Census file does not repair that list.
An Iowa food earn-out that is not named-account gross profit will be re-traded. Floor it. Cap it. A seller note with current pay is credit, not SBA equity.
Twenty-eighth place on the Census map is a sourcing fact, not a Des Moines multiple. The matching buy-side door is buy a manufacturing business in Iowa. Book a confidential intro call when the recast and the notice question can travel.
Iowa’s own layoff-notice rule and the federal 100 / 60 test can both be live on a 65.6-person average plant. Counsel reads the headcount before anyone drafts a floor script. Disclosure regimes exist on some property transfers; counsel names which one attaches. Ag-machinery seasonality, food code dates, and chemical formula custody are three different packets. Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Waterloo, and Sioux City stay regions in the teaser. If the only buyer who will tour wants “any Iowa shop,” send them away. The 3,418-shop count does not repair that list.