I have never met a business owner who believed his business to be worth less than $5,000,000, even if they were generating $100,000 in annual turnover. It is an odd truism that I suspect reflects the eternal optimism and frontier spirit that embodies the American entrepreneur. “I started this company. I built it from the ground up. It is worth $5 million; at least.”
The purpose of a due diligence period is to allow the Buyer to fully investigate all of the claims, warrants, and representations a Seller has made regarding the status of the company. Are the financial statements accurate? What protections are in place to lock in key customers, employees, technologies, and other assets upon which the value of the company is based? What are the internal structural components, processes and […] Continue Reading…
As we closed down 2009 and reflect on the year’s successes and failures, I look towards 2010 with some minimal optimism. That’s not saying that I had a great year, on the contrary, but more as an acknowledgement that I’m a typical optimistic entrepreneur. This was a tough year for everyone, maybe not so much for the big banks who received billions of bail out money, but definitely for […] Continue Reading…
I am working with two businesses right now that have family members involved in the day to day company operations. One is the more traditional style with a single family member owning/controlling the company and their family member working in the company. In the other situation the family members are partners (equals) in the business with no majority ownership control by any party.
Simply put, earn outs are when a seller receives additional compensation from the buyer only if pre-determined bench marks are hit in the future by the new owner. The intent of the buyer is not to hand over all the cash up front at the date of purchase, but for an installment type sale based upon the future successes of the company.The risks, or actually reality more often than not, is that the new […] Continue Reading…
