Corporate Finance
Disposals and Exit Strategy
Selling your business might be the most important single financial transaction of your life. Typically, this will be the culmination of many years of hard work and it is vital to ensure that you receive the full reward for the time you have invested into building your business.There are a number of ways of realising the value from your business, including:
- Sale to a trade purchaser
- Sale to a management buy-out or management buy-in team, typically financed through bank debt and/or equity and mezzanine finance
- Introducing debt and/or equity to allow you to release equity from your business, without selling out (either in full or at all)
- Flotation
The first way to achieve the maximum value for and best exit from your business is typically to properly plan the timing of the exit of your business and to do the right things to “groom” your business for sale prior to this. This should allow you to maximise the price you receive and achieve the right deal structure and form of consideration.
The second way is to make sure that you receive the right advice from people who are experienced at the process of selling a business and who can guide you through each step of the process.
How we can help you
We have many years of experience in selling businesses and in preparing businesses for sale. We can help you in the following ways:- We can work with you to produce a detailed Sales Memorandum and financial forecasts, which will properly describe and “package” the business. This will form the key document which will be distributed to potential purchasers
- We can work with you to research and prepare a list of potential purchasers
- We can project manage the process of making contact with and supplying information to potential purchasers
- We can negotiate on your behalf with potential purchasers, and advise you on the relative merits of any offers received
- We can co-ordinate all the parties to the transaction, in particular lawyers, minimising the disruption to your business and maximising the chances of a successful outcome
- We can introduce appropriate tax advice to ensure the transaction is structured in a tax-efficient manner.
Additionally, we can help to advise you on the best way to "groom" your business. If you are considering an exit from your business in the next 5 years, it is worth speaking to us, to start putting into place now the things that will help when you finally come to sell.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss how we can help you, or click here if you would like to find out more about our experience and credentials.
