Selling a business

Overview

When a business is for sale, or selling off one of its parts, it needs to spend time preparing itself for sale and then demonstrate its commercial and financial strength to potential buyers. The sales process needs to be carefully managed to ensure that all the right buyers are aware of the opportunity and all relevant information is made available to the buyer in a controlled manner. Competitive tension between potential buyers needs to be maintained throughout the process if value is to be maximised.

Potential issues

As a business owner or manager your strategy may involve disposing of part of the business, whether through a carve-out of business units, or by the sale of existing entities. This may be because you want to return value to shareholders, to reposition your portfolio to focus on core businesses or because you are in the process of restructuring. Some of the areas where you may need support include:

You may not be that far advanced in your thinking and want help to assess the feasibility of business plans, to diagnose poor performance and to formulate your disposal strategy.
You may want help to understand what your business is worth in the context of a proposed sale as you assess your options.
If you have decided to sell some or all of your business you will want the opportunity to identify value critical issues and the option to “regroup and fix” outside the glare of sale process.
You want to minimise the disruption to the business by having a controlled sale process.
You need to develop a strong sales and marketing strategy and campaign.

How can we help?

By leveraging our team of technical and industry experts we can assist you in the following:

Assessing your disposal options and advising on the best disposal strategy to adopt, including a detailed company and market assessment and identification of potentially interested parties.
Performing a valuation of your asset or business and highlighting the key value drivers.
Performing a vendor due diligence (an in-depth independent report on the financial health and prospects of a business that is being sold) that provides comfort to both buyers and sellers.
Identifying the right list of possible buyers and deciding on the right marketing strategy.
Managing the sales process on your behalf. This allows you to benefit from our knowledge and experience in this area and involves interaction with all interested parties and other advisors while you focus on managing the business.
Negotiating the best terms and ensuring that the legal closing process maximises your proceeds.