Regardless of your life stage or how long you’ve been in business, it may be time to start thinking about your next steps. We have three decades of experience helping private and family-owned businesses with succession planning, and have worked closely with numerous business owners through this period of significant transition.
Business succession or transition can be difficult and take many forms. This is why we are here to assist and support you – whether it be preparing for a sale or merger, a part-sale or management buy-out (sale to employees). We can also assist you in family succession planning for family-owned businesses.
We will help you understand and set realistic expectations when it comes to the succession process. We know that you are looking to achieve a capital gain as an outcome of divesting of your business; any acquirer of your business will be also seeking to gain. We will help you to successfully navigate through your choice of exit strategy, prepare your business for the change-over, including assisting with the required financial, taxation and structure changes, compliance requirements, and generally support you during this period of transition.
Preparing Your Small Business for Sale or Merger
As part of preparing your business for sale, we are often engaged to provide analysis of historic data, financial projections and tax minimisation, whether you are selling, merging or handing over the reigns to a family member.
Preparing your business for sale may include moving your financials to the cloud – we can assist you with this process, if the time is right for the change. Setting up your financials in the cloud provides many opportunities to streamline business processes and financial management, making your business more attractive for a potential buyer, and making it easier to provide up to date financials as part of a sale process.
Succession usually takes place over a considerable period of time and, in the case of businesses sold, often involves participation of the vendors for a reasonable period of time after sale. For example, many businesses are now sold with a substantial ‘contingent’ consideration – i.e. the final price is contingent on the future results of the business.
