Optimize your business sales process for Legal with airSlate SignNow

How to create outlook signature

[Music] hello i'm kevin donaghy i'm an attorney with brokers.law today i'd like to go over the steps involved in selling your company this is just an outline it's an overview additional information can be found on our website on brokers.law where we go into each of these steps in greater detail okay first is going to be pre-sale preparation this is legal and financial and operational reviews to make sure that your company is ready to be sold that you have your legal documents in order that your financial statements are in order your tax returns and any other contractual documents you have and that you have reviewed and analyzed any operational uh issues that your company may have so that you have answers to questions that prospective buyers might have next is you you with your professional advisors will analyze your company results and determine the proper positioning for a sale and that is prepar determining a sales range how is your company doing compared to others in the industry and what multiples that means a multiple either of sales or a multiple of profit that companies typical similar similar or typical to yours normally sell for in your industry and in your region next is a determination of a strategic and optimal buyer pool who are the likely buyers for your company these are the persons that you'll be marketing your business to and who who are those are those competitors are those larger companies that are seeking to to consolidate and roll up smaller companies into into bigger ones or are they just new buyers entering the new buyers that would be entering your marketplace after that you prepare initial marketing information this is the marketing information that is going to go out to the buyers it'll be a summary of your company of your history and your the prospects and the results that your company has obtained prior to prior to transmitting any of this information to prospective buyers will have already prepared and you will already have prepared non-disclosure and non-solicitation agreements these are documents that protect your company against uh individuals just seeking to get your information and go try and recruit your employees to steal your customers so these are important documents these are usually prepared with the help of an attorney after this you market your company to your prospective buyer pool and you exchange limited financial information you give them the summaries and then you'll start to give them limited financial information from this you will have one or more companies that will become interested in buying your company and you'll start the negotiation process so you start negotiating back and forth over a price and terms that will be included once you come up with you know roughly come up with the terms and the price this will be reduced to contract it'll either go through a stage where first you might do a letter of intent that the parties are intending to close along these terms and conditions or oftentimes you'll go right to contract where you will outline the terms and conditions and sign a contract with the buyer or the prospective buyer from there and always included in the contract will be a detailed due diligence period this is a period where the prospective buyer comes in and analyzes your financial information in detail this is usually with the help of either their broker their accountants and their lawyers they come in they're gonna at this point probably meet some of the key employees and they will you know ask for additional information they'll go through your tax returns they'll go through your financial statements they'll go through your bank statements they just want to get comfortable that the information that you've given them is accurate so this due diligence period occurs after contract and before closing during the due diligence period certain issues may or may not come up and if if issues come up these usually get addressed and these will usually be fine-tuned in the contract prior to a closing next uh and usually with the assistance of your lawyers and your uh broker and or your accountants you will prepare the closing documents these are documents that are going to be executed by both the buyer and the seller in order to transfer your company to the uh to the new owner after that you have your closing this is when all the documents are signed and the the money or other consideration is transferred from the from the buyer to the seller after that you'll have post closing issues and transition issues the seller of the company might be staying on for a certain number of months or during a transition period he may continue to work there for a year he might be helping them transition for six months or it may be a situation where no transition is really required usually there are reconciling items that that occur post-closing this would be items such as allocating expenses properly between the buyer and the seller collecting of receivables and other such matters so these usually occur after the closing and last but not least you may have some holdbacks where some of the consideration is held back for a certain period of time dependent on review to make sure that nothing no surprises come up or there might be earn out agreements and these are agreements where part of the consideration is based on how the company does afterwards again this is just a brief summary of the steps that are involved much more information can be found on our website at brokers.law thank you [Music]