Thinking About Selling Your Company? Here Is What You Need To Know

In order to make the sale of your privately owned company a success, you must know, at least, something about the dynamics of doing so and the issues that are likely to arise during the complicated process. Some of the key considerations that you should take into account are listed below, although this is by no means an extensive list.

Selling a business is a long process

From the very first thought of selling your business through to the deal being completed – the whole thing can take anywhere between four and six months. Mergers and acquisitions expert Andrew Barnett of Fort Lauderdale says that the amount of time that the process takes comes down to the number of bids that are received and how much due diligence the buyer performs.

In order to ensure that everything runs smoothly and the process keeps to the above time frame, hire a specialist financial advisor who can control the entire auctioning process and force potential buyers to make decisions quickly whilst still remaining competitive. As part of this process, all financial records will be placed online for buyers to scrutinize.

Hire a specialist Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyer

So that the whole process of selling your business goes smoothly and follows the letter of the law, you should hire a specialist Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyer. If this is a large deal, then you may also want to think about bringing in a full team of lawyers to accompany them with their work.

This is because the sale of a business is a highly complex process that involves lots of advanced legal issues. Due to their nature, they can be highly contentious and fast moving, meaning that the more experts that you have on board working for you to complete the deal, the better.

Intellectual property is an important issue

For any interested buyer of a business, the state of the company’s intellectual property or IP for short is a very important issue to consider. This is why when selling your business, you should make a comprehensive list of all the IPs that you hold – along with all of the relevant paperwork to go with it. 

It is not unusual for the individual or group buying the business to want to, themselves, confirm the value of the IP. This is particularly true for technology based companies where the use of the IP is vital to the current or future operating of the business. For this reason, buyers will be concerned about licenses that may appear to be too broad.

Negotiation dynames are complex

The sale of any business, both big and small, requires some level of compromise on either side of the deal. When it comes to this point, it is important to understand where your leverage lies so that you can come out of the negotiations feeling as though they were a success. In order to achieve this, you should try to establish a good professional rapport with the buyer.

This will help to stop the negotiations from getting too heated – something that is not good for either side.