Sell with Us

Sell with Us

A proven process for converting your private shareholdings to cash.

Equitas Business Brokers Limited – expert Burlington business brokers for buying and selling businesses

Your Milestone

A successful business sale: the perfect capstone to your entrepreneurial journey.

Your Milestone

A successful business sale: the perfect capstone to your entrepreneurial journey.
Equitas Business Brokers Limited – expert Burlington business brokers for buying and selling businesses

Maximize Your Sale Price

On our first call, we demonstrate how to position your company to sell for maximum value.

We Invest $100k+ in You

Our team invests time and resources into your company ensuring a sellable asset, a successful due diligence, and that no money is left on the table upon closing.

Maximizing shareholder value is the primary focus of our business sales process. It is the reason why we invest time and resources into the sale of your company. Each step of our Value Maximization Process is outlined below.

1. Normalize Financial Statements

Accountants prepare annual financial statements which aim to reduce your tax burden, which is a wise endeavour during regular operational periods but is highly damaging to share value when preparing for an exit.Part of our early stage work with you is creating a set of normalized financials which work in parallel with your traditional accounting statements to maintain share value.Value is maximized by displaying to buyers, in a trusted and professional document, the actual earnings of the business.

With most businesses, this exercise adds $250,000+ of value during negotiations.

2. Maximize Real Estate Value

If you own the real estate your business operates from, maximizing the value of both assets is essential during a business sale process. This applies regardless of whether the real estate is retained or sold with the business.OpnRoad has a proprietary tool that analyzes where to set the rent to maximize the real estate and business value.

3. Risk Mitigation Process

Risk and return are the primary considerations when buyers evaluate whether or not to invest in an asset. As such, we spend a significant amount of time assessing the risk profile of your business and help mitigate unnecessary risk.This stage of your preparation is comprehensive, protecting share value before going to market.

4. Benchmarking Analysis

Most businesses sold leave a significant amount of cash on the table due to unrecognized underperformance. Rectifying these inefficiencies can have a massive impact on business value.Your benchmarking exercise, on average, increases bottom-line performance by 2% – 10% and sale price by 3x – 6x on every new dollar earned.

With most businesses, this exercise adds $750,000 of value to their shares before going to market.

5. Offer Structure Analysis

When a business is sold, the total consideration (purchase price) consists of cash and terms. As such, the deal structure significantly impacts the total amount received by ownership. When adding tax strategies into the process, a properly structured sale can increase total cash-at-close by 10% – 50%.

6. Maximize Cash-at-Close

“It’s not what you make, but what you keep” is especially relevant in business sales. Between professional fees, taxes, terms, representations and warranties, insurance policies, earn-outs, vendor notes, share rollovers, working capital, and outstanding debt, there are a lot of competing forces on your cash proceeds upon sale.

Our comprehensive cash-at-close analysis is a primary focus for our team, helping to increase your take-home cash by multiple thousands of dollars.

In a small company, the transfer of ownership will likely be the most significant organizational change the business will go through.

The transition can be difficult on staff at all levels and is often unexpectedly challenging for ownership.

Where appropriate, our licensed Organizational Psychologist, Eve Northmore, leads various one-on-one and team sessions to ensure a smooth transition for the most critical part of the business–its people.

Transition Planning Sessions Include:

  • Shareholder Alignment Sessions
  • Staff Announcement Planning
  • Staff Transition Planning
  • Post-Sale Integration and Culture Alignment Sessions

Even when an offer is accepted, 60% of businesses fail to sell due to the diligence process. Because every owner starts the diligence process assuming their company will make it through, failure at this stage is all the more devastating when it occurs.

We invest in a detailed pre-diligence exercise with all our clients, which mimics the most stringent diligence process likely to be encountered. In this process, items which would have caused failure are discovered early and can be rectified before discovery by buyers.

An additional benefit of this process for our clients is saving on legal and accounting costs if the business is determined to be unsellable. Owners can then go back and rectify issues, having saved $20,000 – $50,000 in outside adviser fees.

Our team creates industry-leading marketing materials designed to position your opportunity ahead of other options your buyers will consider.

A business’s story and future blue sky opportunity create intangible value, exciting investors and lenders to take action.

Every page of our pitch decks, teasers, and confidential business overviews is purposely designed to move the needle on your share price.

Our buyer identification and outreach is confidential. This ensures that no one knows your company is on the market without signing an NDA and obtaining your consent.

Running a detailed campaign unique to your offering is essential for creating competitive bidding and maximizing value.

Our buyer identification team invests three weeks for every client to identify over 2,000 prospective buyers unique to your industry and business offering.

Additionally, we have over 5,000 institutional buyers in our database and buyers in the five international buyer groups we are members of (Village Wellth, Private Equity Info, Search Funder, Axial, and ACG).

Selling a business for maximum value is a team sport and requires the expertise of professional advisors outside of our network to maximize your after-tax proceeds and post-sale investments.ﾠ

To ensure your wealth is maximized, you should consider sessions with the following  professionals:

  • CFO Advisory session
  • Tax Strategy Session
  • Lender Pre-Approval Session
  • Life Insurance Planning Session (Tax Mitigation Strategy)
  • Wealth Planning Strategy Session (Post sale wealth management and maximization)

Our Proven Sales Process

Our confidential sales process designed to introduce your company to multiple strategic buyers.

Building a Sellable Asset

Clarity & Preparation

Each sale starts with a valuation to ensure all shareholders are aligned, and your transition goals can be satisfied.

Includes:

  • Business Valuation – MVA ™
  • Goal Identification & Shareholder Alignment
  • Preliminary Due Diligence
  • Data Room Buildout

Estimated Time – 1 Month

Preparing for Market

Market Readiness

Building a powerhouse team around you to mitigate risk through legal protections, minimize tax through proper planning, and maximize post-transaction wealth via accredited investment vehicles is the first part of stage two.

The second part of stage two is identifying strategic buyers and creating world-class marketing materials to solidify their investment.

Includes:

  • Transaction Team Building
  • Marketing Material Creation
  • Value Enhancement
  • Buyer Identification

Estimated Time – 1 Month

Attracting Buyers

In Market

Confidentially marketing your opportunity to curated, screened and qualified buyers creating competitive tension for your asset is the primary deliverable in stage three, and a critical process for maximizing your sale price.

Includes:

  • Buyer List Creation
  • Confidential Marketing Process
  • Buyer Screening
  • Buyer/Owner Interviews & Pitches

Estimated Time – 1 Month

Accepting Offers

Offers & Negotiation

The primary stage four deliverable is presenting multiple offers for your review and consideration. The pros and cons of each offer are weighed, and the winning LOI is selected, signed, and an exclusivity period is entered into with the prospective buyer.

Includes:

  • Discovery & Controlled Auction
  • Receive Offers
  • Negotiation
  • LOI Signing

Estimated Time – 1 Month

Diligence & Closing

Cash-at-Close

Cash in your bank is the primary deliverable in stage five. Achievement of the mission-critical goal is achieved by successfully managing diligence, definitive legal agreements, removal of conditions, and closing activities.

Includes:

  • Diligence Activities
  • Definitive Agreement
  • Closing Activities (Cash Deposit)
  • Training & Transition

Estimated Time – 2 Months

Sell with Us - Equitas Business Brokers trusted M&A advisors.
Trusted advisors for selling a business with confidence and strategy

Let’s Connect

We are excited to connect and create a tailored exit strategy together.