Achieving an Exit in an Owner / Operated Business

Corporate Strategy
Written By Vignes Rajagopal
Achieving an Exit in an Owner Operated Business-01.png

Many founders start businesses with a long-term goal of achieving a financially rewarding exit.  It's the motivation that often sustains owner-operators through the most challenging troughs and maintains focus on the continued development of the business during the energising peaks.
 
However, planning and achieving a successful exit is possibly the most complex objective an SME will face.  Devising an exit strategy, building the collateral acquirers demand and managing complex negotiations while simultaneously maintaining the performance of the business is a juggling act that is incredibly difficult to pull off with limited resources and finite time.
 
As a result, it's natural for SMEs to look for external support but at the lower levels of the market, there is a significant problem.
  
THE PROBLEM
 
For businesses with an enterprise value between £1m - £20m, there has historically been a dearth of cost effective, expert support and advice for shareholders planning an exit. Even when shareholders can find and engage professional support, it is often siloed between corporate strategy, finance and legal with the emphasis on the owners to pull that advice together in a joined up, effective way. 
 
It’s a problem that starts at the earliest phase of planning an exit when owners need to identify the factors that drive value in their businesses to maximise the financial reward of an exit and develop a go-to-market strategy that identifies not just direct competitors but adjacent sectors that could contain interested acquirers.
 
It continues through negotiations when acquirers’ pick holes in the business, emphasise risk and dissect balance sheets.  Owners need to be able to defend every aspect of their business to keep terms favourable.     
 
This makes M&A processes notoriously difficult for SMEs to navigate. The emphasis is on shareholders to pool resources and advice, fill in the gaps and bring everything together to meet the demands of an acquirer, whilst simultaneously managing their business and ensuring performance levels remain high so as not to negatively impact enterprise value.  The stakes feel huge and decision making becomes incredibly difficult.  
 
THE SOLUTION
 
Dragon Argent offers a truly integrated and full lifecycle M&A advisory service to SME sell side clients that is unique. With expert professional capabilities across corporate strategy, legal, and accountancy we have the experience and competencies to guide you through every stage of an exit process.
 
This joined up approach not only drives considerable cost and time efficiencies for clients, it gives shareholders an invaluable partner who takes a huge amount of the workload and stress of an M&A cycle off their desks, allowing them to keep their focus on the performance of the business, maximising sale value.
 
HOW WE DO IT
 
By offering clients a full cycle M&A advisory process. Integrated, intuitive and with your best interests at its core.
 
Dragon Argent’s M&A advisory service is an end-to-end engagement that takes shareholders from mapping out an initial exit strategy, taking into consideration the core objectives of the shareholders, all the way through negotiation and due diligence to completion.
 
We’ll support you every step of the way by:

  • Establishing shareholder objectives & creating consensus for an effective strategy

  • Developing a clear roadmap to maximise enterprise value

  • Curating the collateral needed to arouse interest from potential acquirers

  • Building and executing a clinical go-to-market strategy

  • Securing letters of intent and negotiating heads of terms

  • Managing all aspects of commercial, accountancy and legal due diligence

  • Handling completion and offering post sale support and guidance

To learn more about our unique sell side M&A advisory service, download our brochure here: https://bit.ly/3mSe1yB

Categories

Article Types

Latest Articles

Vignes Rajagopal
Previous

The Art of The Pitch Deck to Raise Investment
Next

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Updates