ask the expert

It is vital to do due diligence on potential acquisitions simply so that you can be sure of what you are getting. There are risks attached to making an acquisition (as well as the rewards) so the more information you have the easier your decision to buy becomes.

Our due diligence specialists can provide tailor-made reports on financial, market and management aspects and explore any tax and pension issues. This helps you avoid any hidden risks or nasty surprises.

You can – there’s nothing to stop you just putting your business up for sale. However, if you do that you might not get the best offer for it. We suggest grooming your business so as to maximise the value of it and make it more attractive to potential buyers. You’ve worked hard to build your business up so it makes sense to get the best return for it. Grooming your business does not take a huge amount of effort but it can make all the difference in terms of the offers you will receive.

That’s where we come in! Selling your business can be an extremely emotional experience as well as the most important financial decision you’ll ever make. Therefore it’s vital to have someone to guide you through the process. By helping you identify potential buyers we will already have some background information on them to help you make the decision. We can also help you compare the offers and assess the pros/cons of each one. Finally we can help guide the deal to completion leaving you free to concentrate on running your business.

Value is really in the eye of the buyer when it comes to buying a business. There may be certain aspects of your business that are more attractive to one buyer hence them making a higher offer. This can be affected by factors such as:

• long terms contracts with customers
• top management locked in and incentivised; this enables the buyer to keep your team
• market presence in a sought after territory
• protected intellectual property (particularly in relation to IT companies)
• strong brand
• consistent profits

Other aspects such as the timing of the sale and the general economic and market conditions can also affect values.

That will happen if you have the right adviser. We have a huge amount of experience in doing deals and keeping all aspects of it confidential. We maintain strict confidentiality to ensure commercially sensitive information is not released to staff, customers or suppliers.

For example, in terms of finding a buyer we operate a covert auction process. This means no details about your company are released without your agreement and any potential buyers have to sign a confidentiality agreement before they get further information from us. We also keep all aspects of the deal confidential throughout the process and on completion if you decide you do not want any publicity about it.

Having worked with numerous businesses we recognise that as your business grows you’ll need to find innovative ways to fund this. There are a variety of options out there. We can work with you to ascertain what your goals are and what benefits an injection of fresh capital would bring.

We can also advise on your options including looking at a combined solution which allows shareholders to release some value whilst simultaneously raising development capital. Overall we can advise you on the most suitable level and form of funding to achieve your aims.