Selling a Substantial Business

If you are thinking about selling your SME then it is a good idea to talk to one of our experienced brokers. As with most people who own a business you will have a large amount of money tied up in your company, and if these funds are not managed properly by a knowledgeable advisor it can have a serious impact on your future.

Possible obstacles include:

• Losing valuable intellectual property to a competitor.
• Your business being valued inaccurately.
• Buyers that have not been pre-qualified or able to make a legitimate offer.
• Understanding how honest a buyer is.
• An incomplete sale & purchase agreement.
• Due diligence not being done to industry standards.
• Drawing the wrong kind of purchasers by using vague advertising.

Initial Consultation

Contact us for a no obligation, confidential initial consultation. A senior specialist broker with experience in your industry will meet with you to discuss your goals, time frames and reasons for exiting so we understand the issues that are important to you.  

Prepare Market Appraisal Document

Once decided to proceed with the sale, we prepare a comprehensive "Marketing Appraisal" document detailing every aspect of the sale process, including a financial summary of past year’s performance and financial calculations to establish pricing and strategies. 

Prepare the Information Memorandum Document

When the advance planning is completed we then require a mandate for a specified period of time from you authorising us to proceed. We then begin compiling specific information required by purchasers to include in the information memorandum.  This document summarises the various aspects of the business.  When completed this will be submitted to you for your approval, ensuring all the information accurately represents the various aspects of your business.

Create a Marketing Plan & Find Serious Buyers

A comprehensive marketing plan will be presented to you, this will be customised taking into account the specific nature of your industry and business, and will include strategies to find the right buyer.  In many cases buyers are found from our database of qualified buyers which can result in a sale being concluded expeditiously.  We have many potential buyers entering our database each week and when your business is listed with us we firstly look for potential matches in our database.

Should we mutually decide to market the business, advertising conducted will not identify your business and interested parties are pre-qualified and required to sign a confidentially agreement before receiving any information.  

An advantage of using an experienced company with knowledge gained from many prior transactions and a large information database is that we protect you from potentially time wasting buyers. We spend considerable time qualifying buyers, making sure they have the necessary funds as it is important that only buyers who can complete the transaction are given the details on your business

Prepare a Sale & Purchase Agreement

A ‘sale and purchase agreement’ details the buyers offer along with the conditions to be fulfilled prior to the agreement becoming unconditional.

The preparation of this agreement is one of the most important aspects of the sale process.  After negotiating and concluding many mergers and acquisitions of SME's we have considerable experience in this process and will recommend to you various situations to be aware of and to ensure these are incorporated into the agreement.  We will work with your legal advisers in preparing an agreement to minimise your legal exposure.

Verify information supplied to buyer

Once negotiations have been completed the purchaser will, under due diligence, require verification of information supplied, this gives them a specified period of time for themselves or their financial adviser to inspect certain records and documentation.  In preparing your business for sale we will identify to you what records will be inspected so you can ensure these are ready at the appropriate time.

Throughout the due diligence process we liaise between both parties to ensure the conditions of the agreement are satisfied.  This is a very important part of the process and unless well managed by a third party can cause potential problems resulting in a sales not proceeding. Our job is only completed when settlement and possession occurs.