Not Every Buyer Will Protect Your Business’s Legacy — Choose Wisely

When your shareholders have decided that it is the right time to put your business up for sale, it is very easy to say, “Great, let’s sell it to the buyer with the highest valuation.”

But that would be a mistake. There are several other factors that go into finding the “right” buyer for your business and your specific situation. This article will help you think through those various consideration points and provide some warnings for things you need to look out for to avoid known potential pitfalls when it comes to picking the right buyer for your business.

The different types of buyers in a normal sale process

When companies are put up for sale, that is often done with a business broker that is marketing your company to many prospective buyers at the same time. Let’s say that, in a normal process, they could reach out to 200 target buyers, get 20 of them to engage in some sort of dialog or preliminary due diligence, and get 5 of them to submit a letter of intent to purchase your business.

The question of this post is: which of the five buyers is the one you should pick? Spoiler alert: it may not be one with the highest price.

Most buyers can be classified into one of three categories: (i) strategic buyers, which are companies looking to get into your industry or increase their current market share in your space; (ii) financial buyers which are often private equity firms or family offices looking to buy cash-flowing businesses as an investment strategy; and (iii) individual executives or entrepreneurs that are looking for a business for them to own and operate themselves (these can be individual executives or fund-less sponsors backed by private equity funds creating new executive roles for themselves).

Let’s talk about the typical advantages and disadvantages of these three different types of buyers.

Related: What to Know About Selling Your Business

Strategic buyers

Advantages: Strategic buyers are often the most reliable to get to closing. They are talking to you because they see something in your business that can help them with their business. Because of that, they are often the most willing to pay the highest valuations. They are often cash-rich, which means many do not need outside loans to get a deal done, depending on the deal size. They don’t necessarily need your management team if they have other executives able to step in and run the business.

Disadvantages: Strategic buyers are often the slowest moving and have the longest timeline to close, as there are many different decision-makers involved. So, if speed is important to you, think twice about going down this path, as the due diligence and document drafting process could be the most cumbersome.

Related: Sell Your Company For a Higher Price By Telling a Better Story

Financial buyers

Advantages: Financial buyers can move pretty quickly, as they typically sit on a big pile of cash that they are looking to invest.

Disadvantages: They will often want to raise bank debt for up to 50% of the purchase price to better spread their equity investing potential into other companies. And banks like to invest in companies with over $3MM in EBITDA, which may not be you.

They will want to back executives, as opposed to run the business themselves, so make sure you have a management team plan for them, which may include hiring and training your replacement prior to selling. They tend to be the most aggressive in terms of negotiating the best price possible for themselves in order to maximize ROIs for their investors.

Individual buyers

Advantages: These tend to be the least sophisticated buyers and can require the least due diligence or the least “hoops for you to run through” to get to closing.

Disadvantages: They often require bank financing for a large portion of the transaction (up to 90% with SBA-backed loans), so the process can get slowed down by them having to secure the needed capital. Since those bank loans often require personal guarantees from the buyer, they are often the most nervous about “making a mistake” and can easily talk themselves out of a transaction if they don’t want to take additional personal risks.

Related: 5 Tips to Successfully Sell Your Company

Other topics to consider when picking a buyer

In addition to the type of buyer, you have to assess these additional considerations to determine if they are the right buyer for your business or not.

• Their Reputation. If you want to protect your legacy, you don’t want to sell your business to a buyer who will damage the company’s reputation in the future.
• Their Plan for Your Business. If you care about how the business is going to be run post-sale, you don’t want to sell to anyone who doesn’t share that vision.
• Their Plan for Your Employee Team. If you care about the fair treatment of your staff after the sale, you don’t want to sell to someone who will lay off your team.
• Their Odds of Closing. Selling to a buyer with a 75% chance of closing is much better than selling to someone with a 25% chance of closing, even if it means a lower price.
• Their Speed to Closing. Selling to an experienced buyer who knows how to get through the process quickly is preferred to selling to an inexperienced buyer who could have the process dragged out for months and still not get to the finish line.
• Their Personal Fit for Your Culture. Make sure there will not be any personality or other issues with the buyer in terms of how they will mesh with your current culture and team.
• How it is Financed. An all-cash offer is a lot better than an offer requiring any seller notes, earn-outs or third-party bank financing. Duh!
• How Secure is Their Financing? If they do require outside bank debt or equity investors to fund the transaction, have those commitments been secured already, or is there risk they will lose their financing? Even committed financings can fall apart, so be careful here.
• Market Conditions. If the economy or financial markets are perceived to be on an unsteady footing, buyers, banks and equity investors will be nervous, which will hurt your odds of getting the business sold. Find buyers with a long-term vision who are comfortable in all market conditions.

As you can see, there are a lot more things to consider than maximizing valuation when picking the right buyer for your business. Don’t be so focused on getting the highest sale price that you potentially “topple your apple cart” by not fully considering all of the above issues. Good luck!