Market Testing Before Selling A Business  

From the process you'll learn what potential buyers do and don't appreciate in your business, so that if you decide not to sell at this time, you can put those insights to work in preparation for a higher value sale in the future

Points to consider when a business is uncertain:
How does the process work?

Pick a few of your most promising potential buyers to broach (Shield can help you sort out who they are; be careful not to alert your toughest competitors though).

Approach buyers as confidentially as possible - on a "no name" basis via an intermediary if possible (i.e. if you can describe your business without giving away its identity. Shield has plenty of useful experience with this). Give them a short descriptive document and invite them to make non-binding offers for your business. 

Make it clear that you have an attractive stand-alone future, but that the synergies from a potential deal now might deliver enough of "tomorrow's value" today to make it worth the shareholders considering a transaction now. (It's obviously much more convincing if you have the analysis of stand-alone and synergy value to support this claim; Shield can work with you to produce this ammunition).

Make it true that you have an attractive stand-alone future. Develop a credible and attractive plan, and sow the seeds of future growth. (This is precisely what Shield's Business Improvement Programme is all about - selling a business for more).

What does the process reveal?

Will the process damage my business, like a failed sale would?

No. The good thing is you won't have damaged the business, for two reasons:

1. First, because a business sale market testing process like this can be tightly focussed and extremely confidential (possibly even, as we said, on a "no- name" basis).
    
2. But more importantly, because you demonstrate from the outset that your business has an attractive future and you are simply exploring whether selling a business today could deliver enough of that future value now to make it worth doing sooner rather than later.

How much does it cost?

Contact us for a confidential chat, with no obligation.