This is a choice that business owners face. Do you plan to sell your business when the time is right? Or do you plan for some kind of succession? Of course the two needn't be mutually exclusive - a succession buyout or VIMBO can be partial with the owner retaining a meaningful stake. And this can then be followed by a trade sale for example.
We have done a number of management buyouts of this pattern where the plan is to groom the management team who are to achieve the succession over a period, and then the entrepreneur can exit fully at a later date.
This allows the rest of the team to become stakeholders, and the business often benefits. Work life balance issues for the original owner can be addressed as it might yield the opportunity to go part time. Each deal is different as no two companies, and especially no two directors have the same objectives.
To address these questions, and the thorny questions of when IS the time right to sell given the current difficult climate we are running an updated version of our Business Exit Strategies Seminars. They will also cover grooming the business to build value or protect value in recession.
Even if a transaction in the short term is neither practical nor desirable, it is more than ever time to make plans for an eventual exit - or cash realisation.
The events are practially focused with interactive sessions and aimed squarely at business owners.
They run in April in Ipswich and Cambridge, and again in Norwich and Peterborough in June. Have a look at the events page on our website for full details of these and other events that we are running.
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