Selling a Family Business? Prepare for the Challenges!

Selling? Getting it Right!

The decision whether or not to sell the family business is often a difficult one. No matter if the business has been nurtured and handed down through several generations or is still in the hands of the founder, deciding to sell is tough. The tragedy is not that the family business sometimes gets sold; it is that they all too often get sold due to unmanaged conflict or insufficient planning. While Continuity is in the business of preventing these tragedies, we have also helped several families move on from their family businesses so they can deploy their wealth in other ways.

Continuity has worked with clients facing these and many other challenges:

• Lack of heirs interested in the business
• Market changes making independence unsustainable
• The ‘too-good-to-be-true’ offer
• Changing priorities due to health issues or personal crisis
• Need for shareholder liquidity
• Fragmented, dispersed ownership
• Fear of broaching the topic with other stakeholders
• Intractable conflict

Sometimes our work help families find a way to avoid a sale, reinvigorating family ownership. Whatever the client decides, however, they know that they have fairly and thoroughly considered all alternatives, the interests of all stakeholders, and their own goals and aspirations.

Selling a family business is an experience that owners go through perhaps only once in their lives and they soon learn that the process of selling the family business is complicated and risky. This provides a huge advantage for acquirers and investment bankers who buy and sell firms many times each year.

Having a trusted, knowledgeable advisor who is in your corner can make the difference between a sale that meets your objectives, and one that doesn’t; or one that may even fail to get to the finish line.

Learn more here: Guiding You in Selling a Family Business