Sometimes in the process of discussing the sale of a company with a business owner, they turn to you and ask “What is it that you do to justify the fees you charge. Couldn’t we do this ourselves?” It’s a fair question, and especially for those who’ve never sold a company before, it’s a question whose answer is worth understanding.
Selling a company for most owners is a big and sometimes daunting undertaking. There is often a lot of emotion about the decision, and hundreds of details to manage.
Consider these fundamental but time consuming activities your investment banker will be handling:
- They (a team of professionals whose full time job is selling companies) provide a proven process for representing the seller’s interest to a marketplace of sophisticated buyers. (It includes market research on your industry, developing marketing materials to present your company to qualified buyers, gathering years of historic company information and reducing it to an easy to understand story of your business, developing target lists of potential buyers, connecting with those prospects, making hundreds of phone calls, answering hundreds of questions, negotiating deal terms and preparing the owners for a closing.)
- Your investment banker will manage all the schedules of calls, meetings, and presentations so you can remain focused on running and growing your business.
- Your investment banker uses a marketing process, databases, and networks of market contacts to bring you the most qualified buyers possible, which creates a more competitive environment for your company.
- Your investment banker’s job is creating the greatest amount of competition to derive the greatest value for the seller.
- Engaging a qualified investment banker adds instant credibility to prospective buyers that the seller is serious and will be prepared.
- We are intermediaries that buyers may speak freely with, without getting emotional responses from owners. Buyers can float ideas which may ultimately help in crafting a successful transaction.
- We are sometimes needed to be the designated “Bad-Guy” to handle delicate parts of a negotiation.
- We have watched both buyers and sellers make hundreds of unfortunate mistakes. One of our goals is trying to minimize the unwitting errors of judgment and lack of awareness.
- We also support the selling process by preparing information about your company including, a valuation assessment, financial summaries and analysis, review of operations practices, talent and staffing requirements and the overall management team, sales and marketing activities, your competitors, industry trends, and much more. All of this is designed to present you in the best possible manner. This is often done with peer group and industry comparative analysis.
- Investment bankers also help you protect from having too much information divulged too soon, and we screen out “shoppers” who may be nosey or just “kicking the tires”, or those without the ability to close a transaction.
- We do all of these things and more in a highly confidential manner, and work closely with the business owners, and their other advisors (attorney, accountant, financial planner) to minimize the intrusions on their work day, and bring about an efficient close to a rewarding transaction.
If you are contemplating the sale of your business please consider contacting your nearest investment banker at Corporate Finance Associates. Find us at www.cfaw.com