Welcome
Setting the scene
You're the founder of a business that you intend to sell or a member of a management team considering a sale or private equity investment process. You might want to sell all or a part of it, and it may be that you want to start the process now or that you're thinking about preparing your business for sale or private equity investment in the next few years. You would be right to think that the greatest challenges you face are to find a potential buyer or investor and to convince them that the business will deliver its business plan.
Nevertheless, the sale or investment process itself presents significant challenges from a legal and administrative perspective. This guide explores some of those key challenges to help you successfully prepare for, navigate, and complete your sale or investment.
What's covered
We begin with the steps to take to prepare for the sale process—what's needed to 'get your house in order'. In particular, we'll cover:
- Getting the right management team and professional advisors.
- Ensuring key elements of the business are prepared for legal due diligence.
- Getting ahead of potential external hurdles to completion from shareholders, lenders, and regulators.
This section considers the range of potential buyers and how this may affect the transaction, including private equity, trade, and US-based buyers.
Here we discuss tax matters so you can structure and negotiate the sale in order to maximise your net proceeds.
We also explore the personal tax planning steps you should be thinking about now, ahead of any potential windfall.
We finish with an explanation of the sale process and how to navigate it successfully.
We don't cover listing your business on a stock market here, but our Corporate Finance team would be delighted to discuss this alternative option with you.
How we help
We work first to understand you and your business so that we know what you need. We spot the most complex legal issues and deal with them in a way that maximises value and minimises risk. Pragmatism and commerciality are our key mantras in delivering our service.
Our market-leading M&A, Private Equity, Venture Capital, Private Wealth, and Tax teams are highly experienced in advising founders across multiple sectors, stages in raising capital, and sales processes. We know the market and how to craft the best solutions for you and your business; our responsive team can support you each step of the way.