Businesses come in all shapes and sizes, each with unique characteristics, potential, and value. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, a budding startup owner, or an investor looking to buy or sell a company, understanding the worth of a business is…
When it comes to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), success comes from meticulous planning, strategy, and execution. Whether you’re a well-established business professional or are a newcomer to the M&A game, the due diligence process remains the cornerstone of any successful…
Going through the process of buying a business is an exciting time. You might envision your name on the desk with the word “owner” next to it. Perhaps you’ll start planning your future around the freedom your new position will…
Considering selling your business? This can be a considerable process even before you decide to list. While determining all the details you want to include in the potential sale, you might stop and think: should I use a business broker?…
If you own a small business and require a share freeze, partnership dissolution, or are starting to exit plan for the sale of your business, the first question owners often ask themselves is, “What is my company worth?” Most accounting…
The finishing line to buying your business is in sight— you want to get there ASAP. But you can’t shorten due diligence, an important and complex part of the purchasing process. As described in Due Diligence in Buying a Business (part one), our goal is to identify any fatal flaws, verify that the information is reasonably accurate and confirm that this business will really work for us. And so, it's essential we keep to the plan our broker has set out for us.
We have successfully negotiated agreement upon an offer to buy a business based on the information our business broker and the seller have provided. This offer included many conditions that we must be satisfied with prior to closing or the offer becomes null and void and our deposit, refunded. We must now plan and execute a reasonably thorough analysis of the business and the information provided.
Guided by our business broker, we have made a conditional, non-binding offer to purchase a business at a price (below market) and terms that would work for us. We set out a time for response, a closing date, financing, training and transition, what was included and excluded, and provided a deposit for the broker to hold in trust.
We have talked about how to go about selecting a business. You get that none are perfect and that you will never have enough information to feel 100% confident about your choice. You have decided that all things considered—after reviewing the documentation provided by your broker, your meetings and discussions with the business owner and your personal visit to the business—a business will work for you.
