Welcome
Setting the scene
You're the founder of a business that you intend to sell. You might want to sell all or a part of it and it may be that you want to start the process now or that you're thinking about preparing your business for sale in the next few years.
You would be right to think that the greatest challenges you face in selling are to find a potential buyer and to convince them that the business will deliver its business plan. Nevertheless, the sale process itself presents significant challenges from a legal and administrative perspective. This guide explores some of those key challenges to help you successfully prepare for, navigate, and complete your sale.
What we cover
We begin with the steps to take to prepare for the sale process – what's needed to "get your house in order". In particular, we discuss:
- Getting the right management team and professional advisors.
- Ensuring key elements of the business are prepared for legal due diligence.
- Getting ahead of potential external hurdles to completion from shareholders, lenders and regulators.
Part 2 then considers the range of potential buyers and how this may affect the transaction, including private equity, trade and US-based buyers.
We then touch on tax matters in Part 3, so you can structure and negotiate the sale to keep the greatest amount of the proceeds possible.
We finish in Part 4 with an explanation of the sale process and how to navigate it successfully.
We do not cover exiting your business by listing on a stock market in this document, but our corporate finance team would be delighted to discuss this alternative option with you.
How we help
We work first to understand you and your business, so that we know what you need. We spot the most complex legal issues but raise them and deal with them in a way that maximises value and minimises risk. Pragmatism and commerciality are our key mantras in delivering our service.
Our market-leading private equity, venture capital, private wealth, and tax teams are highly experienced in advising founders across multiple sectors, stages in raising capital and in sales processes. We know the market and how to craft the best solutions for you and your business and our responsive team will be with you each step of the way.