Exiting your business: Selling your business
When you are thinking about selling your business, you will want to find prospective buyers and to know how much your business will be worth to them.
If a buyer is interested in progressing the matter further, they will need to decide how much they are prepared to pay and to consider the structure of the deal. If you get several offers it is not necessarily straightforward to work out which is the best for you. You might need to assess, for example, whether cash consideration to be paid at completion is preferable to a potentially larger amount that is received later but only if certain conditions are met. Tax is always a major factor and it is important that you focus on the post tax consideration and not only the headline price. There are many ways that a deal can be structured and you should ensure that you negotiate a deal that is right for you. We consider below the following issues:
Once you have negotiated an agreement in principal, you then need to formalise the agreement. We consider the following steps:
Not all of the above steps will be necessary in all cases. For example, if a management buyout has been agreed it may not be necessary to look for an external buyer, and where the sale represents a family succession many of the steps may be omitted. We would, however, always recommend that you seek tax advice regarding the structure of the deal at an early stage in negotiations.
Where next?
Within Exiting your business… General...
