Exit Planning

Start with the end in mind

You’ve worked hard and made sacrifices to get this far and now you feel like it’s someone else’s turn. It’s time for some exit planning.

Maybe you want to sell the business or maybe you’ve simply taken it as far as you can and it’s time to merge it with another business to take better advantage of the market. Maybe it’s time for someone else in the family to take the baton.

It pays to plan

Whatever the motivation, it is a significant moment in any company owner’s life and it is not an easy task. You usually only get to do it once so it needs to be done right!

It takes a lot of time and resource on top of the time you already devote to running the business. Without some exit planning and the correct experience and resources then the sale can either fall through or proceed to completion at a reduced value. A bespoke plan is required to ensure the desired objectives are achieved.

What do you want to achieve?

These objectives could include:

• Getting the best price.
• Merging the business to access expansion capital and management experience to take the merged business to the next level
• Ensuring a smooth transition of leadership, perhaps to family members. 
• Ensuring that the future involvement for the current owner is as little or as much as they wish it to be.

Determining what you want to achieve is actually the first thing that should be considered at the exit planning stage. It needs to drive everything and with these objectives in mind you then need to make a plan that gets you there. It is almost impossible to do this alone whilst running the business and as a result having someone to go through the process with you who has been through it before can make a significant difference to the outcome.