If you give an exclusive professional advisor the responsibility of selling your business, they will devote themselves fully to this task, gathering teams of accountants, finance specialists and lawyers from international offices to complete this endeavor.
Advisors with expertise in selling family businesses will understand the emotional complexities and legacy considerations, making them more understanding while streamlining the selling process.
Preparation
Corporate financial advisors can assist in the sale of your business. Their adept negotiators understand the complexities associated with such transactions while possessing strong project management abilities.
Advisors specialize in creating sales documentation and marketing your company to potential buyers; this process typically lasts nine to 12 months.
Corporate finance advisors can also help with capital raising, financial restructuring, mergers and acquisitions (M&A). They can advise you on the optimal financing solution to fit your needs; conduct valuations; identify potential buyers; help negotiate terms; close deals while upholding confidentiality throughout the process to avoid value erosion due to accidental disclosure; as well as provide cost efficiencies to help increase your bottom line.
Valuation
Professional valuation is an integral step in the buying process, providing credibility to your asking price and helping ensure the deal is structured appropriately.
A successful advisor must possess an expansive global network, giving them access to investors, lenders, private equity firms and strategic partners.
Business owners seek advice from consultants to optimize capital structures and identify cost-cutting measures, and for guidance in complex situations like financial distress or restructuring.
An expert advisor can ensure complete confidentiality during the sale process, which can have a substantial effect on its final selling price. Granting exclusivity to an advisory firm adds significant value that brokers cannot offer.
Marketing
Marketing strategies designed for advisors that work ideally are those which provide quality content that genuinely helps prospective clients and educates them, rather than self-promotional spam like what most financial advisors used to produce. It has proven itself an effective means of building authority, trust and rapport with new clients.
As with a broker, a corporate finance advisor will prepare sales documentation and identify and contact potential buyers for your business. However, unlike their broker counterparts they take an in-depth approach to understanding both your industry and sector as well as providing impartial advice regarding options and outcomes available to all shareholders.
Your advisor could also assist in raising capital through debt or equity financing, restructuring its finances to reduce risk and facilitate mergers and acquisitions, or facilitate mergers and acquisitions. A good adviser will also help you understand the true value of your business so as to facilitate its successful sale.
Negotiation
Negotiations is often the cornerstone of business sales. Therefore, having a professional advisor on hand who understands this area is invaluable in protecting your interests – such an advisor should broker deals that are both financially and commercially sound for their client.
Professional advisers provide exclusive representation, meaning they will only contact potential buyers who have expressed an interest and can afford it. This minimizes the risk that information about your sale could leak out into employees, customers, suppliers and the wider market – potentially decreasing its value and decreasing your bottom line.
Once a buyer is identified, offsite meetings can be set up so that he/she can gain a better understanding of your business. At this stage, an offsite visit may also involve gathering and cross-checking various data – often setting deadlines for responses.
Closing
Closing process of any sale is one of the most essential steps, including preparing final sales documents, managing contingencies and complying with legal compliance. Corporate finance advisors frequently enlist professional advisers for this part of the operation in order to guarantee its standardisation, confidentiality and efficiency.
Professional advisers possess advanced capabilities in negotiation, project management and financial analysis, as well as offering strategic advice. When working with family businesses and industries they understand, professional advisors take great care to understand each company and the market it operates within, in order to maximize transaction prices and terms when selling. Furthermore, they don’t compete with brokers for exclusivity but rather ensure confidentiality during the selling process; furthermore they utilize all channels available such as industry contacts or investors when searching for buyers.
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