M&A Activity Levels

M&A activity has been reasonably buoyant this year.  Indeed Morgan Stanley recently predicted a 50% increase this year at the big ticket end of the market as funding costs, inflation and recession concerns recede.  Overall, in the UK the rate of M&A is higher than it was in 2023, according to Idex Consulting, with over 400 deals in the UK completed in Q1 of this year.

Mark to Market’s most recent data (below) show UK deal volumes remarkably steady through out the year, although specifically comparing June 23 with June 24 shows a marked drop off in volume.   To early to form any conclusions from one month which included the election. More specifically looking at East of England data from Experian shows Q4 of 2023 and Q1 of 2024 showing a deal volume decrease, but an increase in deal value driven by a few in region mega deals, the sale of 337 Morrisons Petrol Forecourts, two AstraZeneca acquisitions, and Barclays buying Tesco’ retail banking unit.

Factors Influencing M&A Activity

Finance

Availability of funding for deals is a key factor.  Generally it remains available, although it takes longer to get hold of and prices have hardened a bit.  Private Equity should remain a driver.  Not just because of the large amounts of "dry powder" that is so often referenced, but also because many PE houses are sitting on more mature investments which must be getting closer to sale.  Pitchbook reckons that at the start of 2024 PE firms held more then 27,000 portfolio companies worldwide and approximately half of those had already been on the books for four years or more.  Expect sales. 

Price Expectations

Deals don't happen when buyers and sellers have widely differing price expectations for the target company in question.  Deals happen when the expectations gap narrows.  Anecdotally the gap may be closing as vendors and purchasers get used to the new normal of higher interest rates, and as inflation and financing costs stabilise. 

Business Confidence

Of course, confidence is always a factor in M&A, alongside money and motivation, and nothing erodes it like uncertainty. 

The IoD publishes a very useful quarterly update for members on all key aspects of the economy (another membership benefit) part of which is a confidence survey.  This shows it hitting a fourth month low in June 2024.    My money’s on confidence improving with certainty of the new government’s plans.  Although in the autumn the budget and the US election outcome may rock the boat.

So having the new government in place, and post Kings Speech a good idea of their plans will certainly help.    Perhaps in a reaction to the increasingly crazy turbulence of Johnson and Truss era Labour seem focussed on nurturing the UK as a good place to do business.  The obvious things to point to being fiscal stability (no budgets unless economic expert advice and guidance is given), infrastructure investment, improving relations with our European trading partners, and industrial strategy.

Investment

Investment should also help, in railways, and housebuilding particularly.   Other potentially positive changes are the National Wealth Fund, intended to “unlock billions of pounds of private investment” to support energy transition.

But related investment is the question of where the money comes from.  So tax remains an issue.  The government has lots of big plans, but where will the cash come from besides the already announced tax changes for non-doms and VAT on private school fees?

Private Schools

On the subject of private school fees there’s been a lot of noise about how VAT will hike fees, but in fact private school fee inflation was already pretty strong as the chart below from the Independent shows.   Will this change trigger some M&A in private education?  

Tax

A burning question for many entrepreneurs will be what is to become of Business Asset Disposal Relief (‘BADR’) which effectively gives a lifetime £100,000 of tax saving on the capital gains from business disposals.  But the bigger question is whether or not income tax and CGT rates will be equalised – that would increase the tax on company sales from 20% (once BADR used up) to 45%, a big hike.   And while Labour said they have “no plans” to increase CGT, they haven't listed CGT as one of the taxes they're committed to not increasing the rate of in their manifesto.

This might lead to a rush to the exit, as entrepreneurs seek to accelerate sales. But given that a company sale process can take between 6 and 18 months it’s only those that are well down the track that could do anything before the date of the “fiscal event”.  If the change doesn’t happen until the start of the next tax year, then expect it to drive M&A activity, and buyouts.    If CGT does end up at 45% it ought to fuel interest in Employee Ownership Trusts as a means of exit potentially allowing the vendors to pay no CGT.

Conclusion

Expect the benefits of certainty and the prospect of investment measures to be a stimulus while the disruption of tax changes and potential geopolitical worries act as a counterbalance.  My feeling overall is that M&A activity will benefit and that we’ll see a gentle rise in activity across the rest of 2024.

Inflation can have a negative impact on the value of your business but there are strategies you can use to mitigate its effects.

Higher inflation negatively impacts on financial assets while having a neutral/positive impact on gold, collectibles, and real assets.  The impact of inflation and price changes on individual company values, on the other hand, can vary dramatically. Commodity companies and businesses with pricing power can outperform in inflationary environments, according to investor experience since the 1970s.  Knowing how inflation affects the value of your company can help you make better business decisions ranging from purchasing and pricing products/services to exit strategies and tax planning.

Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University and Wall Street's "Dean of Valuation," has written about what kind of businesses do better in an inflationary environment.  Inspired by his work, here’s some of the key factors one should reflect on when assessing the impact of inflation on valuation.

Impact of higher inflation on Cash Flows and Growth?

• Pricing Power - the size of the total available market and market share affect pricing power. Obviously it’s not good if you can’t pass on price increases on to customers.  Non-discretionary spending on products and services, that you can’t  delayed or substitute will have greater pricing power.  
• Competition - the more competitive the industry you operate in the less pricing power you’re going to have.
• Price regulation - businesses that face price regulation are at the mercy of governmental or regulatory authority pricing decisions.
• Cost structure - a businesses cost structure is important. A company with significant, inflation-sensitive costs will be vulnerable to high inflation.  As in non inflationary times higher margins are better!
• Capital intensity - how much capital does your business need to grow? Inflation has a greater negative impact on companies with longer-term, more rigid investment options.  For example manufacturing companies often need to invest large amounts of capital over longer time periods than service or technology companies.
• Flexibility on timing - companies with more flexibility and time to exit or postpone investments fare better in the face of inflationary storms than companies with less flexibility.

How Does Higher Inflation Influence Risk?

• Cost of Equity - the rate of return sought by equity investors is likely to rise. Inflation has a greater negative impact on high-risk companies.  And businesses in riskier industries, which are more vulnerable to market/economic fluctuations, will see equity costs rise faster than companies in more stable industries.   In other words a higher required rate of return is going to come though in the multiple a Private Equity firm might place on your business.
• Cost of debt - The cost of debt is the cost of borrowing money after deducting certain tax benefits. Higher inflation has a greater negative impact on businesses that are more vulnerable to default.
• Debt v quality of earnings - debt costs may rise less for companies with higher, more stable earnings than for companies with lower or negative earnings.
• Debt capacity impact on deal structure - some M&A deals will be able to carry less debt, and this will impact on deal pricing if the investors are required to put more equity into he transaction.
• Risk of failure - failure risk is the possibility of a catastrophic event putting your business at risk. Higher inflation has an unusually negative impact on companies with a higher failure risk like start-ups and early stage businesses with unproven business models
• It’s not all bad - of course a bit of inflation can reduce the real cost of repaying long term debt so it’s not all bad.

How Can You Combat the Effects of Inflation on the Value of Your Business?

So the impact of inflation on the value of your business depends on its impact on expected cash flow/growth and risk.

During periods of high inflation, companies with pricing power on their products and services, low cost of goods, overhead base, and short-term, flexible investments are going to do better.

Companies with large, stable earnings streams and less debt fare better in inflationary environments (actually all the time?) and have greater purchasing power as prices rise.

Here’s just a 3 ways you can mitigate the impact of inflation on your business and its value:

• Increase your prices – Are your products and services are under priced – this is time to challenge your pricing.  If you do put up prices communicate any increases to your customers honestly by explaining the "why,"
• Strategies to leverage your fixed cost base - Improve net return by considering an expansion strategy perhaps adding new products and services to the mix to boost profit margins by leveraging fixed costs even more.  Push your best-selling products in more places, both digitally and in real life.   You ought to get a purchasing benefit too if greater scale allows you to renegotiate raw material pricing with suppliers.
• Examine your finances -  Look at your debt and funding structure.  Could you refinance or consolidate your debt to achieve a lower overall cost of funding?  

It’s been a long time since I posted here. 

It’s been a busy year and we’ve been busy advising on some interesting transactions.  Here are some of the highlights

Sale of Young Calibration to NMi Certain BV. 

Another sale to an overseas buyer.    Young Calibration is based on the South coast near Brighton.  And this was a first for me in that the whole transaction was conducted virtually.   I’ve done deals substantially virtually, but in this case right from first meeting with the selling shareholder Adrian Young to the complete everything took place in Teams or Zoom.     Young Calibration has UKAS accredited labs and industry leading knowledge and experience in thermal fluid systems testing, cleaning and development. It works with a wide spectrum of industry sectors including automotive, aviation, medical, environmental, and pharmaceuticals.  The deal is strategic for NMi and should allow the companies to capitalise on opportunities in electric vehicles charging, and respond to new regulations in automotive and motorsport sectors.

MBO of Titan

Titan is a St Neots based engineering company.  It began in motorsport racing and having changed and broadened over the years is now at the forefront of manufacturing complex steering technologies for advanced vehicles.  This was an MBO lead by an experienced team who bought the business from its private shareholders.  These shareholders had had the foresight to bring in a professional management team to develop and grow the business, and it’s great to see that coming to fruition in a good exit for them, and a great opportunity for CEO George Lendrum and his team to continue to grow the business.

Sale of Cambridge Bioscience and Research Donors to Nordic BioSite Group

This deal sees three European life science distribution businesses coming together.  NMI’s plans to assemble a pan-European life science research distributor took a big step forward with thee acquisitor  gives them an entre into the market for high quality bio specimens.    Another international deal, and another conducted virtually.  I have at least met Mike Kerins the CEO since the deal was done over a glass of Champagne.

Sale of X-On to SOuthern Communications Group

Last but not least, completing within a couple of weeks of our firm’s financial year end we advised on the sale of X-On a cloud telephony business focussed on the UK primary care sector.   Approximately 11 million GP patients in the UK are now served by 1,400 GP practices using X-On’s Surgery Connect.  This is about 17.5% of the telephony market in primary care.   X-On was sold to Southern Communications Group and it should allow X-On to further capitalise on demand for its market leading product.   Again, a deal conducted largely virtually, but I had met CEO Paul Bensley and his co-Director Paul Heeren before the process kicked off.

Themes

What themes can one draw out from the last year.  Increased digitisaion of deal doing – which is oiling the wheels.  And that there’s plenty of activity still.  That strategic buyers and PE funds are still very active and there’s plenty of liquidity in the market.  From what I can see so far, it’s continuing into 2022/2023

What does the crystal ball say about M&A in 2022 going into 2023

This last section is an edited version of an article I wrote for Business in East Anglia

Deal volume has held up well despite Brexit, and even global pandemic.  So how about the dual impacts of war and inflation?  Maybe better than you’d expect.   A recent Deloitte survey (admittedly done before Putin’s tanks started moving) found that 92% of businesses expected deal volume to increase.   Many owner managers are ready to sell because their businesses are doing well and yet after some difficult years they now feel they’d rather do something else and buyers are paying good prices as they have the means and the motive.

Here’s some 5 drivers of activity we’d expect to see:

1. The private equity sector has record levels of cash which needs spending. This is driving activity and supporting prices, whether PE funds are buying directly or supporting their existing portfolio to buy.  I don’t see this lessening, and with the turmoil in the quoted market, and lack of returns to be made elsewhere I can see investors continuing to pile into Private Equity as an asset category.
2. Deal making digitisation is increasing as the examples above show. This allows us to be more agile and to reach further from base to advise businesses – so if whether you’re based in Cornwall or Caithness I'd love to hear from you!
3. Cross Border M&A is a strong driver with well funded overseas buyers finding the UK an attractive place to do business. As illustrated by the Cambridge Bioscience and Young Calibration deals above.
4. The war for talent there’s been much talk about “the great resignation”, and we’re already seeing deals being done where the acquisition of a good team is the main driver. Expect to see more acquihires – acquisitions driven primarily by the desire to get hold of a team of people - particularly of knowledge led businesses such as consultants, agencies, and professional firms.
5. Hot spot sectors driving activity - Tech deals remain buoyant– COVID led to an acceleration of the transformation of many areas of commerce to harness cloud based technologies. Healthcare also a hot spot, our recent deals underscore this trend.   We’re also seeing a lot of activity in Fintech particularly around London.

In 1985 after 95 years of success, and when nobody was asking for it Coca-Cola  decided to change the formula for Coke.  The new drink was imaginatively called "New Coke".  But reaction to it was overwhelmingly negative and it was withdrawn in just 79 days. 

Surely the world record for the shortest time for announcement to withdrawal of a high profile commercial venture.  Until now.  The recent attempt by 20 of the top football clubs to create a European Super League went from initial fanfare to abandonment in just 3 days.

It highlights the huge value of football and of the clubs.  The top 10 clubs are collectively worth c£26Bn and enjoy more than c£4.4Bn of revenues. The UK contingent in the top 10 in declining order by value are Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Tottenham.  Together they're worth c£16Bn.

 So how do you value a football club?

Conventional valuation methods don't work terribly well when compared to the prices paid for clubs. The market method which seeks to compare with publicly traded entities is hard to use effectively given the small number of public listed football clubs. The discounted cash flow method relies on a clear quality forecast of profitability which is never going to happen in this sector.  And using revenue multiples is a bit simplistic and takes no account of things such as the clubs stadium, assets and cost base.

So how do you value a football club?

Well it turns out that there is a model to do so. Dr Tom Markham is a graduate of Liverpool University's MBA in Football Industries.  His dissertation on valuation, in which he came up with the model, won the Premier League Best Dissertation award.  And is it seems to be quite widely used.

The Markham model is basically an enhanced revenue multiple valuation.  But it factors in the state of the balance sheet, profitability, stadium utilisation and the wages ratio.  These are all KPIs that are tracked for clubs.

Value = (Revenue + Net Assets) * ((Net profit + revenue))/revenue) * (%stadium filled/% wage ratio)

Put simply the bigger the turnover, the greater the asset value, profitability ratio, and how close to stadium capacity attendances are the higher the valuation. And a higher the wage ratio (wages/revenue) lowers the valuation. 

Interestingly for the 6 UK clubs their revenue multiples are remarkably consistent with the top five ranging between 6.2x and 6.6x with only Tottenham at 4.7x much adrift from the average of 6.2x. 

It would be interesting to see statistics for the lower leagues which of course will have smaller stadia, and revenues but lower wage bills.   There’s not enough information in the public domain to do the same calculation with Cambridge United – but I’d hazard a guess that the revenue multiple could be a low as half the above.

It’s been an interesting year. Q1 was active with a steady flow of deals and then in Q2 activity virtually halted as we went into lockdown. Since then, PEMCF have seen a steady uptick, with both paused deals coming back to life and new transactions being initiated. Q3 and Q4 have seen several transactions closing and the latest data shows September deal volumes not that far below what we saw 12 months ago.

Activity is strong in both buyouts and company sales. We recently closed an MBO at a consulting firm operating in the pharmaceutical sector which was particularly attracted to our depth of experience in buyouts and our focus on knowledge-led businesses. And we’re currently working on several other buyouts targeted to close in the current tax year.

We give thanks to Rishi Sunak, as his aggressive shaking of the magic money tree to fund the Job Retention Scheme and other initiatives has stimulated speculation that the Capital Gains tax regime will be changed to help pay for it. Even with the changes to Entrepreneurs’ Relief to limit it financially, and give it a less snappy title, it remains as benign as its been for many years. Momentum is important in deal doing so this has been helpful. Buyouts are also popular as business owners see them as a relatively guaranteed way to get deals across the line in the short term, with banks and private equity houses remaining keen to fund them.

Company sales are also driving activity. We were lead advisers on the recent sale of healthcare software business MJog to Stockholm headquartered Kry. MJog is a patient messaging specialist providing a range of communications solutions such as digital app, SMS, email and voice messaging.  It delivers tens of millions of messages every month, including appointment reminders, recalls and results reaching more than 40 million patients. We’ve also recently advised on the sale of a recruitment services business to a Spanish buyer.

Of course, the other side of the coin is that many growth minded businesses will be looking at acquisitions now. And it’s true that the current crisis is throwing up opportunities. The drivers of all this activity are sector, market liquidity, strategic intent of buyers, and tax, and it feels like they will continue to drive dealmaking in 2021.

As if the Chancellor’s need to raise tax to pay for his vigorous shaking of the magic money tree this year wasn’t enough to fuel the fear of CGT rises in the Spring the recently published Capital Gains Tax review by the Office of Tax Simplification (entitled Simplifying by Design) makes it look very likely.  Also Capital Gains Tax for business owners has been about as benign as it was going to get for some time now.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ots-capital-gains-tax-review-simplifying-by-design

Some themes emerge from the conversations I’m having with business owners, funders and other advisers at the moment.

It’s not a vote loser and yet the Tories would never prejudice entrepreneurship

That’s an interesting comment – and it’s probably true that the average voter won’t weep for too long at the thought of business owners paying more tax.  And yet it’s successive Conservative chancellors who’ve advocated that income tax and CGT should be at similar rates, while in contrast it was Labour under Gordon Brown which introduced the concept of Entrepreneurs’ Relief.  Quoting below from the OTS report:

“When the tax was introduced in 1965, Chancellor James Callaghan said that ‘…gains confer much the same kind of benefit on the recipient as taxed earnings… [and]… the present immunity from tax of capital gains has given a powerful incentive to the skilful manipulator.’ 1 In 1988, Chancellor Nigel Lawson said, when aligning the rates with those for Income Tax, that there is ‘little economic difference between income and capital gains’ so income and gains should be treated along similar lines.2 In 1998, Chancellor Gordon Brown said, when replacing indexation allowance with Taper Relief, that the ‘capital taxation system should better…reward risk taking and promote enterprise.’ 3

It is needed to pay off the national debt

It’s true that the Chancellor needs to raise more cash from somewhere.  But CGT is a drop in the ocean.  As it stands right now raises that national debt of 2.08Tn is 250 times the annual take from CGT.    So using CGT to pay of the national debt is like bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon.

The system if full of distortions so it needs tidied up

Its true that there are lots of distortions and complexities in the system.  And that’s what the OTS report ostensibly sets out to address.   For example, gains on different types of asset, and differences in treatment between IT v IHT v GGT.   An interesting one highlighted in “Simplifying by Design" is the distorting effect of the annual GCT exemption.   They show a distribution of the frequency at which individual’s realise certain levels of capital gain each year.  It has a huge spike generated by people making use of their annual exemption.

A new focus on relief for retirement

This is why it’s not all bad.  The OTS suggest that for business owners who plan retirement there’s a strong case for a CGT relief.    It says that Business Asset Disposal Relief (the new name for what’s left of Entrepreneurs’ Relief) is too broad to do this and needs to be “reformed”.   

OTS makes a few suggestions:

• That the Government consider increasing the minimum qualifying shareholding to 25% so that relief goes to owners managers and not to passive investors
• Increasing the qualifying hold period to 10 years to direct relief only to people who have built up their businesses over time
• Reintroducing an age limit perhaps linked to age limits in pension rules to reflect the intent that it should be a retirement focussed relief.

What conclusions to draw?

If you’ve held more than 25% of a business for more than 10 years, are of pensionable age and are headed for retirement there are reasons to be cheerful.   For those who are younger, built their business more quickly, or have a smaller shareholding it’s time to get ready for a much more fearsome CGT regime.   More about Succession Planning for that age group on the PEM Corporate Finance website

EBITDA

At PEM Corporate Finance we live and breathe EBITDA – it’s the performance metric of choice for M&A advisers and valuers alike as, at least in simplistic terms, it’s a good proxy for cash flow. And ultimately it’s cash flow that a corporate purchaser, investor or valuer ought to be focused on.  That’s what they’re buying or valuing.

EBITDAC

Of course EBITDA needs to be cleaned up before use, often adjusting for the true economic costs of the directors, and adding back any one offs costs. One might think it would be enough to consider the effects of Corona Virus on business, be it in reduced sales, margins, disrupted supply lines, or increased debt, as an add back. But in fact a new acronym has been coined: EBITDAC or earnings before interest tax depreciation and corona.

You can even get it on a mug!

How might it help in practice. Well it will depend on how readily you can quantify and clearly identify the effects of Corona. That might not be altogether straightforward. It might hit the business in many ways, some of which won’t become apparent until later. It is also likely that the Corona effect will vary over time, and by sector. So for example we’ve found that some businesses are picking up slowly after an initial hit, and some sectors particularly in tech weren’t much impacted.
I do think it’s worth trying to isolate EBITDAC. It’s going to be an ongoing difficulty for business valuers. But in M&A there are some immediate impacts:-

Price expectations

Coming out of the recession that followed the financial crash in 2008/9 one of the issues was a big gap that had opened between vendors and purchasers expectations as to price. This could be an issue in the short term now. Vendors will want to sell on the back of the EBITDAC profit metric and on pre-Corona multiples. Buyers will want to back off some of the risk that the current reported EBITDA is the new normal through a reduced price. In practice we’re already seeing the use of earnouts, convertible instruments and ratcheted deals to bridge this gap. Creative deal structuring is going to be needed.

Locked box v Completion accounts

The locked box has become quite common and is especially popular with private equity buyers as it gives them certainly as to price/structure and their funding requirements to allow them to draw down funds if needed. However in a fast moving situation where there’s ongoing uncertainty as to how Corona Virus will impact it may now suit both buyer and seller to move to Completion Accounts where the final deal structure is established on completion. It’s quite likely that deals will progress slowly over the summer as buyers and funders are cautious with their diligence – that further emphasises the need to see what the world looks like on completion if that’s going to take to the autumn.

Normalised working capital

Upon closing an M&A transaction there is always a debate around the normal level of working capital, and what are the debt like items are in the target. And from that just how much surplus cash can be taken off the table by the Sellers. Of course short term there’s a good chance that working capital will not be normal, with a build up of creditors on stretched terms quite likely – and so that needs to be dealt with.

Just how much use is EBITDAC anyway?

Short term I’d say it’s interesting, we must use it, but as a proxy for cash flow it’s useless and that will ultimately limit its applicability in M&A without consideration of other factors such as the fundamental value drivers of the business, it’s forecasts and scenario planning for 2021. As far as valuation opinions are concerned 2020 EBITDAC can only really be used alongside consideration of 2019 results, and a detailed scrutiny of the business fundamentals and prospects for 2021.  It really underscores the need to start planning now for the recovery, as it will be all about having a credible view of 2021 and beyond.   

For more on business valuations and corona have a look at our valuations site or this article on the PEM Corporate Finance site 

Today's the day that the government's Job Retention Scheme gets going in earnest with the portal open for firms to apply for payment.   And the word Furlough has well and truly re-entered the language with many firms already having Furloughed staff, and which will now be applying to get the grants.  I know that my tax colleagues have been active today helping with this.

If you were being unkind you'd say that that government's support for business whilst swift and very welcome was full of gaps.  These are gradually being filled.  The Corona Business Interuption Loan Scheme (CBILs) was onerous in terms of the guarantees required from business.  But now the guarantee requirements have been softened.  Then there was a gap above CBILs and below the Corvid Corporate Financing Facility for larger businesses.  This has now been filled with the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) .  Incidentally why the confused approach to naming these, one's Coronavirus, and other Corvid?

All this still leaves a gap for businesses that don't pass the viability test for CBILs - ie that it would have been viable in 2019 and will be in 2021.  Such businesses are going to have to look to other sources of finance, including the various tax related supports that have been made available, and negotiations with their creditors.  Expect to see the insolvency practitioners busy with a rash of CVAs, prepacks and phoenixes in the Autumn for those firms that can get through until then.

And yesterday the Chancellor announced a £1.25Bn rescue package for start-ups.  He intends to grant c£750m to start-ups through Innovate UK's network of funds.  And to set up the Future Fund which will channel £500m via the British Business Bank to suitable candidates.  Cleverly the loans are conditional on private investors putting in 50% of the money, which should help to filter out the lost causes.  The government will have some kind of equity conversion after three years unless the loans are repaid.  That either means that they'll be left with equity in no hopers, or will have soft conversion rights - or new investors would surely take them out.  But I guess that's a small issue compared with the other burdens the treasury is taking on to support business.

This must be welcome news for venture capital / private equity funds which I know have been closely monitoring their portfolio investments through this crisis.

So the safety net probably still has holes in it - but at least they're becoming fewer.  It'd be nice however if the gaps could  be filled before business groups have to start lobbying as was the case with the start-up community which looked enviously at the generous support in places like Germany, and lobbied hard for this.

We have a Corona Virus hub on our website with lots of information and also practical insights on how to access the right funds.

If you're grappling with how best to access this support, or would simply like to discuss your strategy, get in touch - I'd be interested to hear how you're tackling it.  

After lots of speculation, and much lobbying to have it abolished Entrepreneurs' Relief has been spared in the last budget.  But with a reduction from relief from  £10M of lifetime gains down to just £1M it's a mere shadow of what it was.   This means  that someone who was planning to sell for £10M will now take an additional £900k tax hit.  The argument is that it wasn't the tax relief that was motivating them.   And that's perhaps true - but it will have an impact on timing.  A business owner who was planning to sell based on a given level of net after tax proceeds will now need to sell for a higher price, and so probably delay the transaction.

Here's a short video I've just done on the changes, their impact, and how business owners might address the problem.   There's more on our website or YouTube channel

You can also watch PEM's budget webinar for an update on all the other changes in the budget.

I was reminded again last night of the importance of anchoring while watching Oscar nominated film Marriage Story.  

It tells the story of a marriage break up, and both parties get sucked into dispute once lawyers get involved.   One of the lawyers essentially says you shouldn't be reasonable in your initial demands, and here's why.  The other side will start at "Crazy" and so if you start at "Reasonable" and you settle half way you will be settling half way to "Crazy".   The lesson being if you start at "Crazy" in the opposite direction - you might settle at "Reasonable".

Not I don't suggest that you start at "Crazy", apart from anything else in business negotiations you need a little good will, and the other side need to believe that it's worth putting the time into trying to get a deal with you.  Which they won't if they think you might be totally unreasonable.   But it's worth reflecting that anchoring the discussions will influence the subsequent negotiations.   

If you have some insight into the other sides negotiating strengths and styles that can help too - just how crazy or reasonable are they?